Skytrax reviews of Virgin

Has any one taken a look at the passenger opinons on skytrax lately for Virgin. They need to do some thing about there product soon or things are going to get terminal. I dont know if any one else has had the thought that Singapore who own a big lump of Virgin are using them as a low cost carrier and dont want the competition of another great carrier.Just a thought.
Happy new year to all

It might help debate, for anyone who is interested, to follow the link here.

David

[Scrooge]

When it comes to SkyTrax you are seeing what a lot of business have to go through, you are 90% more likely to get a complaint than you are a positive, response.

Now the big question should be, why the negative response [?]

IMHO it's the VS marketing dept. putting the thoughts into peoples minds that the VS Y product is this amazingly different product, as we all know it's not, ok sure compared to some it's good, to others it's not, but when you have the VS marketing coming out with ad's like the "Feel like you are sitting in 2A when your sitting in 43 A" BS people are, well going to be unhappy when they find that they are stuck in a seat with 31 inch seat pitch for 11 hrs.

SkyTrax and other sites, this one included give a venue for people to vent which in many ways is a great thing.

But, there's some really simple places VS drop the ball which cause these sorts of reviews - things which aren't hard to achieve, and would keep the punter happy.

Filthy dirty planes, which are worked so hard that there's little or no chance to recover from delays, minimal opportunity to fix cabin defects, and everything falls apart when an aircraft goes tech.

Penny-pinched scrimpy food and service, with the new PE service being the possible exception. The J food has gone down the pan (reduced choice and poorly executed meals), and the Y service has been cut back (the dreaded shortbread and cardboard drinks, for example).

Inconsistent service from the crews. Some are fantastic, deeply professional, and appear to care about what the pax think. Others simply couldn't care less about the pax and worry more about what they might be doing on layover. It wouldn't hurt VS' image to have some slightly older and more mature people among the cabin crews, to help keep the "kids" in check.

Replacing experienced, dedicated and familiar permanent staff at downline stations in the US with minimum wage contractors, in order to cut costs, who have only rudimentary understanding of VS operations and procedures (and a similar grasp of English if one of Skytrax correspondants is to be believed).

Bits of the advertised service which just don't happen, such as Priority Boarding or Priority Baggage.

"Bozo bugs", such as food and drinks, special meals, etc., not being loaded.

These are really simple, easy things which VS seem to have trouble getting right. If VS could focus on simple things like clean planes, I think a lot of the grumps would go away.

Mike

[mcmbenjamin]

Originally posted by mike-smashing
gone down the pan

How can anything go down a pan unless you speak of a bed pan? [:#]

[honey lamb]

Originally posted by mcmbenjamin

Originally posted by mike-smashing
gone down the pan

How can anything go down a pan unless you speak of a bed pan? [:#]

Gone down the pan in this context means gone down the toilet pan.

Another example of England and America being divided by a common language [:(]

People are often more likely to complain than praise, and skytrax is one of these places.
Skytrax is also apparently supposed to be a little more biased, and often the worse reviews are posted, but the better are ignored.
Take a look at other airlines. You'll see.

kev.

People aren't going to bother to tell others about the friendly CC they had on their last flight, but they sure are going to tell about the rude staff at VS etc. (not necessarilt wrongly so).

I for one would certainly welcome some older CC with more experience.

VS.

Having flown BA, VS, United, Continental, Delta, Air Canada and a few Charter Airlines, I really think Virgin do a better job than most other airlines, to the point that I only fly other airlines if Virgin don't go there, and now even get a connecting flight over a direct one.

I do have high expectations, and do get a bit miffed when thiings that should work, but don't, i.e Priority Baggage at LHR for example. My last trip in UC my bag was virtually the last to come off. Although it did have a TCA note inside. I no longer bother feeding back everytime there is a deviation from the norm, as I do not want to get labelled a complainer. However, any airline who ignores Voice of the Customer feedback, does so at it's peril.

Older CC in my experience, are less likely to be friendly, and in some cases, I've witnessed them actively avoiding serving customers drinks etc. And actually lieing and saying there is no red wine left, when there was, just because they cannot be bothered to go to another galley to check.

From my statistics class, what many people are describing and what is probably the case here, is known as Response Bias. The people who reply to a poll or, as in this case, write a review are motivated enough to do so usually by a really bad experience. People who have normal experiences aren't going to be motivated enough to spend the time writing a full review of something.

I've heard of many people posting great VS reviews on that site and they've never been uploaded. Maybe the website administrator's don't like the airline or something? Most other airlines have a mixture of both good and bad, not one-sided.

As for crew, I don't quite see the fuss about having older and maybe more experienced members? Take AA for example. I flew with them twice in 2005 and most the crew were around 40ish; they were quite rude and clearly didn't follow the most important customer service rule 'the customer is always right.' In the past VS was kind of known for not usually employing cabin crew who had past experience in the airline industry as they would be harder to mould into the 'virgin way of thinking.' I am only 19 years old and have 3_ customer service experience; so even someone at my age knows how to treat the passengers and act professionally at all times in front of you ensuring you are treated well whatever the class you have decided to travel. Hopefully more passengers will notice a difference in the crew soon enough as most current flights are going with 'crew down' until this new year when eventually ~40 crew will be entering the airline each week Ð instead of the usual ~20 per week.

[Scrooge]

FlyCC, you are right on a couple of things, but the days of the customer is always right is long gone..thank god, the customer is not always right, however the customer should be given a clear reason as to why they are wrong.