lovestotravel
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2008
- Posts
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So recently I decided I would try out the A330 coast to coast service on Virgin in J, having not flown them for about 18 months I wanted to see what had changed (if anything) The return flight was booked on Qantas in J. My first TR on here, I will do more in future, but sorry no pics!
Virgin
Check-in
So upon arriving at the MEL VA terminal they were still stuffing around with building works, walked straight to the business/premium check-in line and waited, and waited and waited. There were 2 counters open. At one counter there was a staff member sitting down and another staff member standing beside her and she appeared to be training/checking/doing something on the computer. At one stage they both looked at me, then looked back at their computer. At the other open counter there was a staff member sitting down, and another one leaving to go home and they were just talking about personal stuff. I ended up standing around for close to 5 minutes which was unacceptable! That aside, we checked in and the staff member was rather sullen and made no personal conversation at all, just handed me my boarding pass and that was it. So far Virgin 0/10
Lounge
Went down to the lounge and was greeted by a lovely staff member (much better) and then went to try to find a seat.. Ofcourse the lounge is 3/4 closed due to renovations in a relatively new lounge..... This was at 12pm so not a peak time, eventually we found 2 seats and headed across to the food/drink area. What has changed food wise - Nothing, except I did see the girl cleaning the toasters with a small cloth, not that it did very much. Drink wise a very impressive selection of beers, very impressed here! 6/10
Plane
Boarding was called and we went to the plane, I knew it was going to be XFB as I checked the incoming flight from PER and the seatmap about 24 hours prior. We were greeted relatively nicely on the plane and that was about it, a glass of sparkling was offered/taken/drunk. We noticed at least 3 other passengers comment/ask the flight crew why the plane looked different/old/etc and they were simply told it's one of their older aircraft.
The seat was fine at the end of the day, but it just felt old! However my TV was fuzzy and almost unwatchable and my partners wasn't working at all. I noticed that quite a few other people had trouble with their TV's as well. Shortly after take-off they announced they were going to reset the IFE as the Economy cabin were having multiple problems with the system. The system reset but my TV was still rubbish and my partners worked for a total of 1 minute. My Audio was shocking as well. I asked the cabin crew and they said best thing to move seats... Now this would have meant moving from the window pair to the centre 3 seats and sitting next to someone else! So we passed and had a few more drinks and went to sleep!
Food wise - Pretty good to be honest but I would have preferred a hot dish and not cold chicken, my fault for reading the menu wrong.
Crew - Were like robots, with no personal interaction with ANY passengers. Worse than SQ in-fact.
1/10 - Just for the seat!
Baggage - My bag was the last one off the carousel in PER - FAIL
Overall
I was very very disappointed with pretty much everything that Virgin had to offer, and they were all relatively simple things to fix. Get rid/refurb those damn EK A330's at at least have a working IFE system. In business class to have at least 5 TV's not working is just beyond pathetic. I can understand lounge renovations but the crew were poor-average at best and the IFE disgusting
3/10 overall Virgin!
Qantas on the way back - I did book the A333 to get the SkyBed experience....
Check-in
The self-check-in machine didn't like my name or new QF card so I went to the business/premium/QC check-in counter and was immediately served by a lovely lady who was very polite, friendly and made an effort to ask how we were etc etc. She then went on to explain that I couldn't use the machine as my booking had my middle initial on it so it would have required me to use that, and that the new QF cards don't always work on the machine but they are fixing it. I asked what plane we were on and she told me the A333 so I do have the SkyBed's
10/10
Lounge
My first visit to the PER QF lounge in many years and wasn't expecting too much. I was greeted warmly by the desk angel and went and found a nice seat close to the window. Heaps of seats and a nice quiet relaxed lounge with no building works. The bar is not self-serve but the bar staff remember what you are after so after a few glasses it's quite easy! Beer selection is poor compared to Virgin and the food was quite good. As it was mid-afternoon there was not much about but the soup was great and the cheese tasty. For a QF and not a J lounge it was a pleasant experience. Although I can imagine when it fills with vests it would be different. 7/10
Plane
Boarding was called quite late (which is good) and the PB line was set up and working perfectly! We were greeted very warmly and I was welcomed back in a manner which I expect
Of course walking to a SkyBed is always a better experience than the other J product. We sat down and were offered a drink (juice/water only) and started to fiddle with the IFE which was working perfectly. This was one of QF's newer A333 which was a 2006 build from memory and the cabin still felt very fresh and clean! My partner noted that the seat/TV was so much better than Virgin at this point. Food wise I wasn't expecting too much as it's not the "international experience" PER-MEL. However I felt the food was better than Virgin, and more "fulfilling" The wine list was nicer and the glasses of muscat were a perfect way to finish off the meal and drift off to sleep for about 45 minutes. The crew were all very friendly, but no small talk which is a surprise. The CSM also didn't go around and talk to any passengers or welcome WPs etc which I thought was a little disappointing. IFE was perfect although a little slow to respond but that's the system. 8/10
Overall
From the very warm welcome at check-in, the welcoming large lounge and the SkyBed and fully working IFE I really couldn't fault QF on this. 8/10 which could have easily been 9/10 if the crew were a little more friendly and the CSM put some effort in doing a quick walk-through!
Qantas vs Virgin Summary
I guess Virgin lucked out giving me XFB on the flight which really soured the experience, but having robotic crew and IFE not working on multiple seats is simply not acceptable. These were not simply issues for this flight as the FA mentioned that the IFE has been playing up "for a while". If I was paying $1200 and ended up with non-working IFE and XFA/XFB I wouldn't have been happy! Now I did email Virgin the other night with very similar feedback to above, and this was the response
"Thank you for taking the time to contact us about your recent flight.
I understand you may be disappointed with the flight experience and on behalf of Velocity Frequent Flyer, please accept my sincerest apologies.
Receiving feedback from our members ultimately helps us to improve our program and we appreciate you taking the time to provide us with your feedback.
Should you have any further enquiries in regard to your Membership, feel free to contact me at this email address, or call the Membership Contact Centre on the telephone numbers below."
Stock-standard copy and paste response with none of my issues addressed, my main point of the email was in relation to the non-working IFE in the seats I was in, but seems they don't care about J passengers getting poor service/non-working IFE. Well I kind of assumed that given that it seems XFB has had faulty IFE for a period of time.
Qantas looked after me keeping the A333 as scheduled and we could have ended up with the A332 with average J seats.
Again I have no reason to fly Virgin domestically expect to burn up points and only on the East-West coast services. I'll try them again in March and see if I get XFA/XFB again
Virgin 2/10 (lost another point due to poor email response)
Qantas 8/10
Virgin
Check-in
So upon arriving at the MEL VA terminal they were still stuffing around with building works, walked straight to the business/premium check-in line and waited, and waited and waited. There were 2 counters open. At one counter there was a staff member sitting down and another staff member standing beside her and she appeared to be training/checking/doing something on the computer. At one stage they both looked at me, then looked back at their computer. At the other open counter there was a staff member sitting down, and another one leaving to go home and they were just talking about personal stuff. I ended up standing around for close to 5 minutes which was unacceptable! That aside, we checked in and the staff member was rather sullen and made no personal conversation at all, just handed me my boarding pass and that was it. So far Virgin 0/10
Lounge
Went down to the lounge and was greeted by a lovely staff member (much better) and then went to try to find a seat.. Ofcourse the lounge is 3/4 closed due to renovations in a relatively new lounge..... This was at 12pm so not a peak time, eventually we found 2 seats and headed across to the food/drink area. What has changed food wise - Nothing, except I did see the girl cleaning the toasters with a small cloth, not that it did very much. Drink wise a very impressive selection of beers, very impressed here! 6/10
Plane
Boarding was called and we went to the plane, I knew it was going to be XFB as I checked the incoming flight from PER and the seatmap about 24 hours prior. We were greeted relatively nicely on the plane and that was about it, a glass of sparkling was offered/taken/drunk. We noticed at least 3 other passengers comment/ask the flight crew why the plane looked different/old/etc and they were simply told it's one of their older aircraft.
The seat was fine at the end of the day, but it just felt old! However my TV was fuzzy and almost unwatchable and my partners wasn't working at all. I noticed that quite a few other people had trouble with their TV's as well. Shortly after take-off they announced they were going to reset the IFE as the Economy cabin were having multiple problems with the system. The system reset but my TV was still rubbish and my partners worked for a total of 1 minute. My Audio was shocking as well. I asked the cabin crew and they said best thing to move seats... Now this would have meant moving from the window pair to the centre 3 seats and sitting next to someone else! So we passed and had a few more drinks and went to sleep!
Food wise - Pretty good to be honest but I would have preferred a hot dish and not cold chicken, my fault for reading the menu wrong.
Crew - Were like robots, with no personal interaction with ANY passengers. Worse than SQ in-fact.
1/10 - Just for the seat!
Baggage - My bag was the last one off the carousel in PER - FAIL
Overall
I was very very disappointed with pretty much everything that Virgin had to offer, and they were all relatively simple things to fix. Get rid/refurb those damn EK A330's at at least have a working IFE system. In business class to have at least 5 TV's not working is just beyond pathetic. I can understand lounge renovations but the crew were poor-average at best and the IFE disgusting
3/10 overall Virgin!
Qantas on the way back - I did book the A333 to get the SkyBed experience....
Check-in
The self-check-in machine didn't like my name or new QF card so I went to the business/premium/QC check-in counter and was immediately served by a lovely lady who was very polite, friendly and made an effort to ask how we were etc etc. She then went on to explain that I couldn't use the machine as my booking had my middle initial on it so it would have required me to use that, and that the new QF cards don't always work on the machine but they are fixing it. I asked what plane we were on and she told me the A333 so I do have the SkyBed's
10/10Lounge
My first visit to the PER QF lounge in many years and wasn't expecting too much. I was greeted warmly by the desk angel and went and found a nice seat close to the window. Heaps of seats and a nice quiet relaxed lounge with no building works. The bar is not self-serve but the bar staff remember what you are after so after a few glasses it's quite easy! Beer selection is poor compared to Virgin and the food was quite good. As it was mid-afternoon there was not much about but the soup was great and the cheese tasty. For a QF and not a J lounge it was a pleasant experience. Although I can imagine when it fills with vests it would be different. 7/10
Plane
Boarding was called quite late (which is good) and the PB line was set up and working perfectly! We were greeted very warmly and I was welcomed back in a manner which I expect
Of course walking to a SkyBed is always a better experience than the other J product. We sat down and were offered a drink (juice/water only) and started to fiddle with the IFE which was working perfectly. This was one of QF's newer A333 which was a 2006 build from memory and the cabin still felt very fresh and clean! My partner noted that the seat/TV was so much better than Virgin at this point. Food wise I wasn't expecting too much as it's not the "international experience" PER-MEL. However I felt the food was better than Virgin, and more "fulfilling" The wine list was nicer and the glasses of muscat were a perfect way to finish off the meal and drift off to sleep for about 45 minutes. The crew were all very friendly, but no small talk which is a surprise. The CSM also didn't go around and talk to any passengers or welcome WPs etc which I thought was a little disappointing. IFE was perfect although a little slow to respond but that's the system. 8/10Overall
From the very warm welcome at check-in, the welcoming large lounge and the SkyBed and fully working IFE I really couldn't fault QF on this. 8/10 which could have easily been 9/10 if the crew were a little more friendly and the CSM put some effort in doing a quick walk-through!
Qantas vs Virgin Summary
I guess Virgin lucked out giving me XFB on the flight which really soured the experience, but having robotic crew and IFE not working on multiple seats is simply not acceptable. These were not simply issues for this flight as the FA mentioned that the IFE has been playing up "for a while". If I was paying $1200 and ended up with non-working IFE and XFA/XFB I wouldn't have been happy! Now I did email Virgin the other night with very similar feedback to above, and this was the response
"Thank you for taking the time to contact us about your recent flight.
I understand you may be disappointed with the flight experience and on behalf of Velocity Frequent Flyer, please accept my sincerest apologies.
Receiving feedback from our members ultimately helps us to improve our program and we appreciate you taking the time to provide us with your feedback.
Should you have any further enquiries in regard to your Membership, feel free to contact me at this email address, or call the Membership Contact Centre on the telephone numbers below."
Stock-standard copy and paste response with none of my issues addressed, my main point of the email was in relation to the non-working IFE in the seats I was in, but seems they don't care about J passengers getting poor service/non-working IFE. Well I kind of assumed that given that it seems XFB has had faulty IFE for a period of time.
Qantas looked after me keeping the A333 as scheduled and we could have ended up with the A332 with average J seats.
Again I have no reason to fly Virgin domestically expect to burn up points and only on the East-West coast services. I'll try them again in March and see if I get XFA/XFB again
Virgin 2/10 (lost another point due to poor email response)
Qantas 8/10
As I said if VA has working IFE I would have rated it quite a bit higher.
