V-Flyer

I am currently in he JFK clubhouse, and am thankful for that. I can't even begin to imagine how the last 24 hours has been for passengers in economy.

Let me start by saying that weather delays area part of flying. As a pilot I am aware of that. What surprises me here is how VS dealt with the weather delay.

VS10, scheduled for take-off at 9:45pm 6/27/07. We were late boarding due to thunderstorms in the area (very heavy storms). Eventually we boarded, but had some excitement when the plane was hit by lightening. To be exact, it was later pointed out that a pole next to the plane took the direct hit, but we were hit by enouh of it to knock out the power. An hour later the plane was deemed fit and we waited for fuel. Waited, and waited, and waited. Obviously the fuel guys were not going to start fueling with lightning flashing around. Eventually the Captain told corporate that he wouldn't be able to fly because the amount of time it was taking would put him past his legal limits for flying without rest. Virgin told him to continue and attempt to take off. Eventually we did try, but approaching the runway the Captain went over his legal limit, and the plane was parked quickly away from the terminal. We had now been stuck in the plane for over six hours! As we were not at a terminal the only way to deplane was to use metal stairs, which were wet due to the storm and very slippery. The inevitable happened. A young girl slipped and fell, also knocking over two other passengers on the way down. Ground staff informed passengers that there were no hotels available, but passengers became very annoyed when they called around and found plenty of hotels themselves (I am lucky, I live in the area but chose to sit it out in the clubhouse).

Moral of this story. Weather happens. Plan for it, and listen to the Captain. He has a habit of knowing what can and cannot be achieved. At the end of the day there will be less infuriated passengers.

As an aside, I am also a little peeved because I asked VS to extend my return trip by a day and they insisted on charging a $50 fee to do so. Yeah I know, it's policy, it's the rules, and I know I am probably going to take some flames for this, but come on VS. This has been a difficult 24hours, and VS had a little chance to show some compassion.

To finish, my thoughts go to the economy passengers. As I said at the start, I can't even imagine how the last 24 hours has been for them. Especially being stuck back therefor 6 hours.

Gripe over. Wish me luck for the 6:45pm re-try on the new flight number VS110!

Sounds awful! I seem to remember a TR when a flight when tech in NY, and VS were pretty awful with arranging hotels etc. Even though VS can not control the weather, they really should have a back up plan! [:?]

Hope you get the flight OK.

Dominic

This is not good - I'm departing on VS10 tonight and I notice that the VS26 has been sitting on the tarmac all day and the 07:30 departure is now scheduled for 23:00.

Phil FM

There were probably knock-on effects today at LHR as a result of not getting the aircraft from the VS10 back to London - hence the request of the flight ops people for the attempt to continue the flight to be conducted right up until the crew timed out.

The bigger picture is probaly something like 2, 3 ot more aircraft worth of pax would be inconvenienced by not operating VS10 last night, or something similar. (In the end, maybe they got inconvenienced anyway.)

I've been stuck on aircraft in lengthy ground delays myself, and it's not pleasant for anyone, but the extent of the apparent disorganisation seems particularly bad. It sounds like better planning for handling customer care during irregular ops needs to be in place.

Indeed, one of the other options if bad weather is expected at a downline destination is not to operate some/all of the outbound flights and consolidate flights together, if loadings allow it, of course. This means you don't end up with (as many) aircraft stuck downline.

In theory, there isn't a hotel entitlement for weather delays, as these are beyond the control of the airline, which is probably why the staff said "Oh, there aren't any hotel rooms left". It sounds like they did keep the Clubhouse open though?

Good luck on your flight later this evening.

Mike

I noticed on the BAA website today that VS10 was listed as "Due Fri 04:23" and wondered about that. I guessed it was due to storms as nearly all the New York flights were coming in 2+ hours late.

I'm sorry you had such a rough time but thanks for posting

I am also sat in the JFK clubhouse (thanks to 2 lovely UC pax who allowed me and t'other half in as their guests) and totally agree with everything said by baldbrit, the organisation by VS has been very poor.

Will do a PE travellers TR on our return (whenever that maybe)

Neil

Oh crap...I thought changes had been made at JFK in the hopes of this type of thing not happening again.

BTW. Do any of the insiders know what happened to VS026 this morning that has resulted in a 14 hour delay to this flight?

Phil FM

Originally posted by FamilyMan
BTW. Do any of the insiders know what happened to VS026 this morning that has resulted in a 14 hour delay to this flight?

Phil FM

Rumours from the people we are with in the clubhouse are saying the delay to last nights 46, the cancellation on the 10 and also rumours that another NYC bound flight diverted to BOS have messed up VS's scheduling big style and that this was the most disposbale flight to lose/delay.

Originally posted by mike-smashing
It sounds like they did keep the Clubhouse open though?

Good luck on your flight later this evening.

Mike

No need to keep the clubhouse open. By the time they found our luggage (some luggage was never found) and we had spoken to VS reps, the clubhouse was opening for the morning.

Poor planning aside though, I always enjoy my time in the clubhouse. The staff always have friendly smiles, and the use of a shower is a huge bonus.

Originally posted by Attitude23
I am also sat in the JFK clubhouse (thanks to 2 lovely UC pax who allowed me and t'other half in as their guests) and totally agree with everything said by baldbrit, the organisation by VS has been very poor.

Will do a PE travellers TR on our return (whenever that maybe)

Neil

I think you may have got lucky. The feedback I received is that the clubhouse was dropping it's allowance of a guest due to the extra passengers it expected to see today. Congratulations!

Cross your fingers for a departure today!:D

Baldbrit

Thanks for posting a balanced (as well as being well informed) account of the misery

One hopes that VS sits up and takes note; making sure contingency plans are up to the mark down the line[V]


buns

Same here. Sorry for all the troubles but I appreciated the way you reported it.

Chuck-

Things were getting back to normal last night. I left on a very packed VS10 pretty much on time - although they were slotting in as many of the delayed VS26 as possible.

The remaining passengers on VS26 finally departed about two hours behind at midnight - I would imagine the flight was quite empty by this time as most of the passengers would have been shared across the other flights.

Phil FM

Originally posted by buns4vs
Baldbrit

Thanks for posting a balanced (as well as being well informed) account of the misery

One hopes that VS sits up and takes note; making sure contingency plans are up to the mark down the line[V]


buns

Just to finish up, we finally took off last night a couple of hours late (JFK issues, not VS). When we deplaned we were all given letters of apology which also included a generous air mile based compensation. Hopefully VS will learn something from the experience and take steps to minimize the chance of this happening again. What we can say for sure is that Customer Service certainly took prompt action to try to mend the VS/Customer relationship. Kudos to them.

Originally posted by baldbrit
Just to finish up, we finally took off last night a couple of hours late (JFK issues, not VS). When we deplaned we were all given letters of apology which also included a generous air mile based compensation. Hopefully VS will learn something from the experience and take steps to minimize the chance of this happening again. What we can say for sure is that Customer Service certainly took prompt action to try to mend the VS/Customer relationship. Kudos to them.

Good that they have tried to make amends after the fact. At least some of those people will now be inclined to try VS again.

A real shame they couldn't have been a bit more organised and either decided not to operate one of the entire round trips (assuming that loads allowed for it), or to do a planned delay on one of the flights - this allows the crew to report for duty later (the hotel is phoned and the crew told to stand down until a later time), and therefore not time out as rapidly.

As an example: BD did this with the MAN-ORD flight today because of known delays

However, one of the challenges operating long haul flights during unsettled weather is balancing the risk of the weather now, the forecast, how you expect it to play out by the time the plane gets to the other end, and if the weather will still be like that later when the plane needs to depart again.

It does seem that VS were somewhat caught on the hop, and it's not as though bad weather on the Eastern Seaboard is a rarity.

Mike

Just to add my slant on how things turned out. Whilst baldbrit is correct in saying a good hourd of the delay last night was due to JFK issues, the first hour was down to VS ground crew at JFK making a huge cock up (the Captain's words not mine!) and just re-booking the whole of the previous nights pax onto the new flight, forgetting that a fair few had decided to make other arrangements and not travel on the new flight[n][n] so the crew had no idea who was and who wasn't on the flight.

As a PE pax we have been offered 37,500 miles, for what turned out to be overall a 23hour delay, which included sitting on the a/c for 6 and half hours on Wednesday night a 2 hour sit on the tarmac on Thursday night, waiting 2 hours to re-claim bags once cancelled, no hotel provided, a £7 and a £10 voucher to feed us for 16hours, which could only be used in one go and not separated, a complete lack of information once booted off the a/c from the JFK ground staff, and terrible management whilst on the a/c from both the Captain and the FSM. So is this a good offer from VS?

Thankfully we had 2 excellent SCC members on the upper deck who made the 14 or so hours we where on the a/c very comfortable and kept us as informed as they could be (not that they were ever given much info[n])

Neil

Originally posted by Attitude23
VS ground crew at JFK making a huge cock up (the Captain's words not mine!) and just re-booking the whole of the previous nights pax onto the new flight, forgetting that a fair few had decided to make other arrangements and not travel on the new flight[n][n] so the crew had no idea who was and who wasn't on the flight.

How on earth does that happen? Didn't they check everyone in again? They should know who checked-in and didn't.

As a PE pax we have been offered 37,500 miles...

So is this a good offer from VS?

I'm trying to work out if delays due to weather are included in the EU Regulation regarding delays and cancellations.

I think the EU directive applies as it's an EU carrier on a flight to the EU.

There is nothing in the EU Regulation about weather specifically, just "extraordinary circumstances".

You could challenge VS that they didn't meet their pax care obligations set out in the EU directive, and that the bad weather in JFK wasn't an extraordinary circumstance as poor weather on the Eastern Seaboard isn't uncommon, and it was predicted in weather forecasts.

I'd like to think a lot of the chaos could have been averted with better forward planning, but that's only based on publically available information such as weather forecasts.

Mike

Originally posted by mike-smashing

Originally posted by Attitude23
VS ground crew at JFK making a huge cock up (the Captain's words not mine!) and just re-booking the whole of the previous nights pax onto the new flight, forgetting that a fair few had decided to make other arrangements and not travel on the new flight[n][n] so the crew had no idea who was and who wasn't on the flight.

How on earth does that happen? Didn't they check everyone in again? They should know who checked-in and didn't.

Mike

Yes we had to check in again, but the VS people on the ground had already just block moved the pax list from the original flight over and then we all checked in again, plus some new people from other missed flights on the Wed checked it and it caused an almighty confusion. As I said the Captain was not pleased and not very complimentary about the JFK ground staff, and it took a lot of double checking. It was even suggested at one point that we might all have to get off again and re board so they could work out who was and was not onboard!! Thankfully it didn't come to that.

Neil

Please read my reply to Attitude23's post here: http://www.v-flyer.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19938

VS ground crew at JFK making a huge cock up (the Captain's words not mine!)

As I said the Captain was not pleased and not very complimentary about the JFK ground staff

What I truly want to say about that particular captain would more than likely end with me being reprimanded if I post it, so I'll keep it to myself. Let me just say that that man clearly demonstrated that he wholeheartedly believes VS air crew and VS ground crew are completely separate entities, instead of players on the same team.

As those who fly often on VS can attest what clearly doesn't help in these situations is having outsourced ground staff who are not invested in VS' success. Aside from having supervision that is well below VS standards, they often fail to take time to develop relationships with local airport authority personnel -- the people we need when flight ops go abnormal. Pax expecting VS to perform (make rainclouds disappear, move offending a/c out of the way, etc.), are bound to be disappointed. Seen in this context one can understand the captain's frustration of not having ground staff "on the same team".

Thanks to those who were onboard for posting your experiences. VS will profit from listening to the input. Perhaps revisiting the whole outsourcing issue is in order as well.

Chuck-

Originally posted by ChuckC
Perhaps revisiting the whole outsourcing issue is in order as well.

Well said, Chuck. [oo]

Originally posted by ChuckC
As those who fly often on VS can attest what clearly doesn't help in these situations is having outsourced ground staff who are not invested in VS' success. Aside from having supervision that is well below VS standards, they often fail to take time to develop relationships with local airport authority personnel -- the people we need when flight ops go abnormal. Pax expecting VS to perform (make rainclouds disappear, move offending a/c out of the way, etc.), are bound to be disappointed. Seen in this context one can understand the captain's frustration of not having ground staff "on the same team".

Thanks to those who were onboard for posting your experiences. VS will profit from listening to the input. Perhaps revisiting the whole outsourcing issue is in order as well.

Chuck-

Well, Chuck, this issue has been addressed by outsourced stations (pretty much all of NA) and something is in the works. Again, I won't get into specifics, but an improvement in the quality of the outsourced staff is definitely forthcoming.

I'd also like for everyone to keep in mind that there are VS ground staff working with the outsourced agents, typically in the role of supervisor. Most people tend to think that everyone aside from the station manager work for vendors, but they do not. At JFK there are quite a few people working directly for VS.

Originally posted by Virj
I'd also like for everyone to keep in mind that there are VS ground staff working with the outsourced agents, typically in the role of supervisor. Most people tend to think that everyone aside from the station manager work for vendors, but they do not. At JFK there are quite a few people working directly for VS.

Good to hear that there are improvement plans, and thanks for the correction, as I think most people's understanding was that with one or two exceptions, the entire operation was transferred to ground services vendors during the outsourcing.

I don't think people are staying it's all bad, my experiences have been good for the most part. It's just that when it is bad, it's really, really terrible.

Mike

Yes, Virj, your note suggests changes are in the offing. We shall wait albeit perhaps not so patiently.

If VS staff can be added back to ground staff that would be a vast improvement.

Chuck-