V-Flyer

Journey to Bangalore via Mumbai - Nov 30th
This TR contains Mumbai transfer details, so may be useful to some.
Seat 18C
African Queen

We arrived at T3 around 5.30pm on Staurday evening, the traffic queued all the way from the tunnel, mainly because of everyone going to the T3 carpark.

We lined up at the UC, to be met by a Virgin greeter. There were 2 counters open and 3 people in front of us. The greeter requested the people behind us, not to have any more than 3 people at the counter.

We were asisted with checkin around 10 minutes later, and secured seats 18A and 18C after a few calls. Why is it the phones Virgin use never appear to work correctly, I've lost count of the times the agent cannot ehar the person at the other end.

We received the Jet Airways boarding pass, i got 15A and my colleague got 11A.

A quick run through the Security line, no one else there, and a quick shoe shimmy after the passport check. I did n't know that the Indian Rupee is restricted and Travelex cannot sell it. The exhange rate they listed was 64 to the , whereas the hotel gave us 72.

Did a quick scout of the shops, and got into the lounge at 6.10pm to get there for my 6.15 massage, which was very good.

Decided on the Chicken Bhuna and Cobra beer, and then switched to the soft stuff. The servcie was slow again, and this was noticed by quite a few other club house guests.

The flight was called on time at 8.30pm at Gate 25, and we headed via the Duty Free shops to check out the price of Cadbury's as we had forgotten to do it earlier in our rush.

The priority boarding was not in effect by the time we got there, so we waited with everyone else.

Once we got into the cabin, the load was as we thought, which was around half full in PE, and about the same in UC.

Push back was a few minutes late, and we were told that the flight time would be 8hrs 45 mins.

The flight was so bumpy that the first drink service never came, a drink was served with dinner, I chose the Roast Chicken, and it was OK. I tried to watch Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but it crashed at least 3 times. The seat also reclined on it's own.

Throughout most of the flight during my waking hours, the little boy behind us, had his DVD on with the speakers blaring out whatever it was he was watching, if it was n't for the Bose headphones, I would have suggested to his mother that a set of headphones would have been better for everyone else in the cabin.

I slept fine for around 4 hours, again with no blanket, which had worked well for me back from SFO at the beginning of the month. My colleague on the other hand, had a blanket and still complained of the cold.

I was woken with 2 hours to go, with a breakfast that was very bland. Have a look at the Photo Gallery for the latest offering. It was not served with any OJ. A couple in the middle section of row 18 complained about it not coming on PE crockery etc, and called the FSM over.

When they had finished, I called her over by name and asked to speak to her. I fed back that this was the worst meal I had had, and beeing bland with loads of salt was pretty dire, she said she would get some fruit, as that had not been brought round. Which she did.

During the last moments of the coffee service, I asked for an OJ, and was told by the CC that she would get it. YET AGAIN, IT FAILED TO ARRIVE. See my recent LA report. So as a non Tea or Coffee drinker, I was out of luck.

There was no AU welcome, despite even talking to the FSM about the food issue, the service was pretty poor in my opinion, the crew were rarely in the PE cabin, although in my trips to the toilet at the back, as the middle one was out of action, I saw a lot of crew activity in the full Y cabin.

Pretty fed up with the hit and miss PE service these days, and can't be bothered to feed it back, because I do not want to be seen as a serial complainer. I know they could do better, and having seen Jet Airways and my hotel do Customer Service as good as you could possible want it, Virgin need to sort themseleves out in this regard.

We landed on time, and headed to our jet way. We disembarked and made the walk to the Immigration hall, where we headed into the long queue for Foreign Nationals, which appeared to move very quickly.

Once through that, it was down to Belt 4 to pick up the case, there were no signs of Priority Baggage working, and after around 15 minutes our cases came off.

This is the bit you need to know if transferring at Mumbai. Do not head Right to the Exit, but left to the transfers, where your checked luggage will be scanned again.

Bear round to the Right and re-check in, and wave your bag off on a pile of other cases, mine was pearched on the top rather precariously, we wondered if it would fall, I suspect it did as my Braun shaver case was damaged, and my electric shaver no longer works. I am hoping it just got switched on and is flat rather than broken.

We met the couple from row 18, who said that as it was 12:50pm, that they had been told earlier that the shuttle buses do not run from 1 to 2pm, and that they should take a taxi. I laughed, as I had been told by colleagues not to believe anything of the sort.

The transfer buses run regularly and are free, a short wait and we were in the Domestic terminal, which is quite new and airy. We got through security quickly and settled down at a cafe underneath the Jet Airways lounge. As the cafe is below the lounge, the free wifi can be used.....

Our connecting flight with Jet Airways was excellent, I somehoe had been given an Exit row (Thanks Virgin) my buddy had not (He is an Ag member). The welcome on board and polite discussions from the CC, are something that every airline could learn from, as well as the ability to serve a hot and very tasty snack on a 1 hr 15 min flight (Hello BA re you listening......)

We landed at Bangalore on time, to be met at the Belt by our Hotel Contact, who escorted us to our driver, for the mad drive into Bangalore. I have some pictures, you'll find some on Facebook later. I'll post the link shortly.

We are staying at the Chancery Pavillion, which has a rather good Indian Restaurant called Indian Affair.

So far so good. This is my first trip to India and it's turning out to be a good one.

Heading to Chennai on Friday for the day, and back on the VS351 on Saturday.

Anyone know why the flights appear to be numbered differently ? I thought all ex-LHR flights were ODD numbers and those back were EVEN. The only thing I can think of is that any flight heading East is ODD and any heading West is EVEN. Is this correct ?

Mark

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7 ... =532233199

More to be added tomorrow.

quote: Anyone know why the flights appear to be numbered differently ? I thought all ex-LHR flights were ODD numbers and those back were EVEN. The only thing I can think of is that any flight heading East is ODD and any heading West is EVEN. Is this correct ?
All east bound flights are even and all westbound flights are odd.

WTF is that meal they served for breakfast [:$]

The round thing looks like an omelette-ish-eggy-thing. The bits to the right, hash browns? NO idea about the top left... [:?]

Mark,

So sorry to hear about the PE service. This is one of the 'absolutes' that VS must, as you say, sort out. There's really little excuse for service other than outstanding, particularly when the carrier advertises itself -- and the PE product -- as something special.

Was security very evident at Mumbai? I assume so.

Chuck-

Mark, your TR sums up so many things which are iffy about the VS service of late.

The VS PE seat, when it doesn't have any defects, is arguably the best PE seat in the sky, but it's let down in so many other areas, such as variable (crew attitude dependent) inflight service and poor quality secondary meal services.

You also highlight that apparently spreading malaise of the de-motivated, uninterested, often invisible, FSM. I know this doesn't apply to all the crew who participate or read the board, but there appears to be something going wrong somewhere.

I remember when they used to be ambassadors for some of the best on-board service one could hope to find outside of an Far Eastern carrier such as SQ, CX or NH.

Sure, times are tough, but what's really happened here?

What's even worse for VS is that even a loyal customer such as yourself has even said that you don't want to provide feedback on this flight for fear of being branded a serial whinger.

It's starting to feel like it's going wrong for VS, certainly in terms of keeping their regular and loyal customers satisfied.

I've earned my TPs to requalify Gold for another year, even some of that was earned the hard(er) way on partner metal, and now I've done that, until my membership year rolls, I'll try out some of VS competitors.

Mike

quote:Originally posted by preiffer
The round thing looks like an omelette-ish-eggy-thing. The bits to the right, hash browns? NO idea about the top left... [:?]


Some sort of Sausage....

Pretty crap actually.

quote:Originally posted by ChuckC
Mark,

So sorry to hear about the PE service. This is one of the 'absolutes' that VS must, as you say, sort out. There's really little excuse for service other than outstanding, particularly when the carrier advertises itself -- and the PE product -- as something special.

Was security very evident at Mumbai? I assume so.

Chuck-


We did n't leave the confines of the airport, so Security looked normal . However, neither of us had been to Mumbai before, so we do not know what normal was. At no point did I feel threatened.

Mark

Thanks for the TR, sorry to hear that it wasn't a very good experience.

Mark,

Sorry to hear of another sub standard flight especially in PE. No recognition again, blimey even as a lowly silver on LH/OS I get welcomed by name. I have said this before, you are VS AU, and you need to complain otherwise it will never get better. I can see VS losing your trade if this goes on, but maybe they have reached that stage already!

Iain

I feel like writing to VS saying 'Why I will not fly anymore with Virgin and specifically not in PE' However, all that will happen is I get a there there pat on the head response and 5K miles.

I'm not interested in the miles, or the fact that they will try harder on the next trip. I'd rather see some action.

At the momnent I feel like a grumpy old man and a serial complainer. Previous feedback has been acted upon, and then reversed, the food at DC was a good example of this.

If Virgin is serious they need to fix the following :

Lack of AU recognistion in cabins other than UC
Improve the food. Other airlines can do it.
Specifically improve breakfast, VS it's crap !
Actually look after your AU members when on board. Quite frankly VS are very poor at that.

I'm not inclined to send a mail or letter in, as it will get handled by a auto responder.

This is not Steve Ridgeway's area, so who is responsible for Customer Care ?

Would love to get invited to a VS Focus group, then I could give some constructive feedback.

VS have some strengths, but some pretty shocking weaknesses. If they were interested in solving them, it's not hard, it's a combination of soft skills and better catering.

Mark

Sounds a real shabby flight, what a shame. Internal Jet flights are good aren't they, as are Kingfisher - both are like BCAL of old and the like. As to Mumbai, your transfer sounded relatively painless, especially now they handle baggage (didn't used to happen, made things more difficult on the buses ...) What's the international terminal like, I haven't been through in 10 months, is it still a nightmare of building work?

Glad you are enjoying Bangalore and your trip to India. I've not stayed at the Chancery Court but heard it's OK, fave place in BLR is the Taj West End, simply a superb hotel and a great Vietnamese restaurant there. Chennai is a great place, where are you staying there?

quote:Originally posted by ukcobra
At the momnent I feel like a grumpy old man and a serial complainer. Previous feedback has been acted upon, and then reversed, the food at DC was a good example of this.


I felt like that 'grumpy old man' a while ago about VS. Finally, I got my complaints taken seriously, I got to meet some fairly senior VS staff as a result, and a number of the things I took issue with got fixed.

However, some of my contacts have since left, and others moved around in VS.

Since that has happened, the things I felt I had reason to complain about have backslid to the way they were before, or worse. I once again feel like a grumpy old man, too.

Looking from the outside in, it seems there's too much short-termism, lack of experience, and possibly a relatively high leadership turnover in VS product and service management.

This means that something which is in the immediate field of vision - e.g. a number of voiciferous customer comments/complaints about a particular thing - are dealt with in the short term by management intervention, but there seems to be no process put into place to ensure that the same problem doesn't occur again, or aren't considered properly when the call comes in to 'save money/reduce spending on X'.

That's my assessment of what goes wrong.

I wonder if it is also one of the causal factors in staff attitude issues?

Mike

Only a day trip to Chennai, and I think I'll write to Steve Ridgeway.

Nothing to lose, and by the time he gets it, I'll have completed my last trip with booked trip with Virgin, which means I'll not be confused with anyone looking for a freebie / op up etc on their next trip.

I'd rather have good service with appropriate recognition of my loyalty.

Mark

If you return to India check out Emirates - the reason I take them in preference to Virgin + another is the ease of connections in Dubai and therefore no hanging around Indian airports for hours. Plus Emirates business and first class fares are very competitive. From a service point of view my experiences would suggest they're on a par with Virgin however, hit and miss. That said, as an EK Skywards Gold I always get greeted by the pursar on board ...

My company travel rules are Economy only, with PE at a push.

A couple more pictures uploaded and a Auto Rickshaw ride uploaded to YouTube.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KfZ_H4y0o9o

Ahhh auto rickshaw rides are the best - I used to gamble with my life literally by challenging colleagues to rickshaw races ... i.e. commandeer several then challenge them to get us individually to x hotel / place first through the Bangalore traffic. What fun but not for the uninitiated.

Now I take a car and driver, my favourite of which prides himself on having driven Bill Clinton around BLR, he's even got a letter from the man in his glovebox to show to visitors!

What a shame about the quality of service in PE.