Following a rather poor flight heres the letter, I just fired off to virgin. Interesting to see if i get a template reply on this or not?
Firstly let me just compliment the outbound crew on VS300 on the 1st of April who were nothing short of excellent, and for the 1st time the inbound crew were excellent as well. Although this email is partly being sent because of poor service it was not in any part due to the failing of the crew
As a frequent flyer in Upper class on the Delhi route I have become quite familiar to the check in crew at delhi who now recognize me and address me on 1st name terms, a lovely touch I might add. On this occasion the check in agent commented on how there would be approx 20 OP-UPS into the upper class cabin due to economy and premium being heavily oversold. I did not think this would be a matter of concern at this stage.
When we boarded this was confirmed as all the suites in upper were taken and there were even passengers on the jump seats! service was slow during the flight due to the full flight, but as the flight progressed the service slowed down to unbearable. Just to give one of many examples, I waited over 40 mins from finishing my main course to my plate being cleared and a further 20 mins for dessert to appear. Once again I must stress the crew was doing their very best absolutely run of their feet and even the FSM was helping out in all the services. This level of service falls well short of what should be expected in the upper class cabin.
Secondly the earphone socket was loose on the suite resulting in the slightest movement causing a loss of sound on the earphones!
Thirdly I found my seat would not recline, it just kept getting stuck despite the best efforts of 3 different members of crew. Not too much of a problem I thought as I had planned to get some sleep, but when the seat tried to be converted into a bed, it completely jammed, resulting in myself having to stand in the isle for approx 20 mins while the seat was finally taken apart and flipped into a bed. After waking up still feeling rather embarrassed by the time this was taking up of the already burdened crew and having to stand in the isle for so long I chose not to get it converted back into a seat until afternoon tea was served choosing to just seat on the ottoman end instead
If there were not so many upgrades given on the day there would have been a vacant suite i would have been able to swap to a fully functional suite, but this was not possible under the circumstances
I understand operational upgrades are a necessity but they should not be at the detriment of the service available to Upper class ticketed passengers. This experience has soured an otherwise perfect flight experience in Upper class, and has left myself wondering that if On a full flight the service falls to bits and with the poor standard of maintenance of the suite I occupied on Virgin is it time to maybe try a different carrier
Regards
Mr Rupsingh
Firstly let me just compliment the outbound crew on VS300 on the 1st of April who were nothing short of excellent, and for the 1st time the inbound crew were excellent as well. Although this email is partly being sent because of poor service it was not in any part due to the failing of the crew
As a frequent flyer in Upper class on the Delhi route I have become quite familiar to the check in crew at delhi who now recognize me and address me on 1st name terms, a lovely touch I might add. On this occasion the check in agent commented on how there would be approx 20 OP-UPS into the upper class cabin due to economy and premium being heavily oversold. I did not think this would be a matter of concern at this stage.
When we boarded this was confirmed as all the suites in upper were taken and there were even passengers on the jump seats! service was slow during the flight due to the full flight, but as the flight progressed the service slowed down to unbearable. Just to give one of many examples, I waited over 40 mins from finishing my main course to my plate being cleared and a further 20 mins for dessert to appear. Once again I must stress the crew was doing their very best absolutely run of their feet and even the FSM was helping out in all the services. This level of service falls well short of what should be expected in the upper class cabin.
Secondly the earphone socket was loose on the suite resulting in the slightest movement causing a loss of sound on the earphones!
Thirdly I found my seat would not recline, it just kept getting stuck despite the best efforts of 3 different members of crew. Not too much of a problem I thought as I had planned to get some sleep, but when the seat tried to be converted into a bed, it completely jammed, resulting in myself having to stand in the isle for approx 20 mins while the seat was finally taken apart and flipped into a bed. After waking up still feeling rather embarrassed by the time this was taking up of the already burdened crew and having to stand in the isle for so long I chose not to get it converted back into a seat until afternoon tea was served choosing to just seat on the ottoman end instead
If there were not so many upgrades given on the day there would have been a vacant suite i would have been able to swap to a fully functional suite, but this was not possible under the circumstances
I understand operational upgrades are a necessity but they should not be at the detriment of the service available to Upper class ticketed passengers. This experience has soured an otherwise perfect flight experience in Upper class, and has left myself wondering that if On a full flight the service falls to bits and with the poor standard of maintenance of the suite I occupied on Virgin is it time to maybe try a different carrier
Regards
Mr Rupsingh