Let me open this by saying this wasn't all Virgins fault.....but it made my day very long and tiring.
It was in 2002 I had to do a lot of travelling in the States and had arranged to come back via the West Coast. Anyway I was travelling on an UC ticket and flew into LAX from Las Vegas (conference honest!) to pick up my connection. Now this soon post 9/11 Vegas hadn't installed baggage scanning machines yet so literally every piece of luggage was getting opened and hand searched (real joy when you've been on the road for 3 weeks!!). So what would normally have been a 1-2 hour travel from LV to LAX turned into 4.5 hours of Vegas airport mayhem. Not the best way to start a transatlantic trip.
Getting into LAX I was looking forward to getting into the Clubhouse to maybe have a shower and a rest before the flight to London. However when I got to the Virgin desk there were no staff there at all. After looking around for maybe 30 minutes I found out from another waiting passenger that the London flight had been cancelled and still couldn't find any Virgin staff. As the Clubhouse in LAX is airside I couldn't get into the clubhouse without my boarding card.
I called Virgin from a payphone and after explaining the situation three times eventually managed to get through to someone at the airport who promised to get someone up to the desk to get me checked in. The staff member came out about 10 minutes later and explained that the flight I was booked on had been taken out of service (not just that flight, the schedule of that flight) and I was going to be put on the next flight which was 4 hours later. I wasn't overly happy but got my boarding card and headed up to the clubhouse for a nap (the other passengers waiting were pretty pi**ed that they couldn't get checked in even though, so I should count my blessings).
Rested up and after a nap I was ready to go. We boarded without incident and although the flight was pretty full UC was fairly empty with a couple of aircrew travelling. About 30-40 minutes into the flight an announcement came over the PA asking if there was a doctor on board, rare but I've heard it before. After about another 20-30 minutes another announcement came over the PA asking if anyone on board had any antibiotics with them. Now that I've never heard and the thought crossed my mind that someone was likely having a problem.
Sure enough after another while another announcement came over the PA that someone had been taken ill and we'd have to land to take them off the flight, I heard from one of the aircrew that another aircrew member appeared to have appendicitis We diverted into Chicago and eventually got a gate to offload the sick individual (interestingly someone else had fallen ill as well so two people got taken off the flight). It took a while to get refueled and a departure slot so I think we spent nearly 3 hours on the ground and people were getting worried about aircrew time if we didn't get airborne within 30 minutes or so.
We eventually got out and I arrived in London about 9 hours behind my scheduled time and a total travel time of getting on for 24 hours (including the Vegas nonsense) for what would normally be a 13-14 hour travel time.
I never heard whether the aircrew member was OK so if anyone on this board knows I'd be grateful to hear.
It was in 2002 I had to do a lot of travelling in the States and had arranged to come back via the West Coast. Anyway I was travelling on an UC ticket and flew into LAX from Las Vegas (conference honest!) to pick up my connection. Now this soon post 9/11 Vegas hadn't installed baggage scanning machines yet so literally every piece of luggage was getting opened and hand searched (real joy when you've been on the road for 3 weeks!!). So what would normally have been a 1-2 hour travel from LV to LAX turned into 4.5 hours of Vegas airport mayhem. Not the best way to start a transatlantic trip.
Getting into LAX I was looking forward to getting into the Clubhouse to maybe have a shower and a rest before the flight to London. However when I got to the Virgin desk there were no staff there at all. After looking around for maybe 30 minutes I found out from another waiting passenger that the London flight had been cancelled and still couldn't find any Virgin staff. As the Clubhouse in LAX is airside I couldn't get into the clubhouse without my boarding card.
I called Virgin from a payphone and after explaining the situation three times eventually managed to get through to someone at the airport who promised to get someone up to the desk to get me checked in. The staff member came out about 10 minutes later and explained that the flight I was booked on had been taken out of service (not just that flight, the schedule of that flight) and I was going to be put on the next flight which was 4 hours later. I wasn't overly happy but got my boarding card and headed up to the clubhouse for a nap (the other passengers waiting were pretty pi**ed that they couldn't get checked in even though, so I should count my blessings).
Rested up and after a nap I was ready to go. We boarded without incident and although the flight was pretty full UC was fairly empty with a couple of aircrew travelling. About 30-40 minutes into the flight an announcement came over the PA asking if there was a doctor on board, rare but I've heard it before. After about another 20-30 minutes another announcement came over the PA asking if anyone on board had any antibiotics with them. Now that I've never heard and the thought crossed my mind that someone was likely having a problem.
Sure enough after another while another announcement came over the PA that someone had been taken ill and we'd have to land to take them off the flight, I heard from one of the aircrew that another aircrew member appeared to have appendicitis We diverted into Chicago and eventually got a gate to offload the sick individual (interestingly someone else had fallen ill as well so two people got taken off the flight). It took a while to get refueled and a departure slot so I think we spent nearly 3 hours on the ground and people were getting worried about aircrew time if we didn't get airborne within 30 minutes or so.
We eventually got out and I arrived in London about 9 hours behind my scheduled time and a total travel time of getting on for 24 hours (including the Vegas nonsense) for what would normally be a 13-14 hour travel time.
I never heard whether the aircrew member was OK so if anyone on this board knows I'd be grateful to hear.
