Virgin pulling Mauritius route?

I can't believe it but Virgin are pulling the Mauritius route. They have only just started it. I moved all my business from BA 3 months ago and now this! I have called their head office but they are denying it. A lot of mu business associates already know. A colleague in Dubai found out from the GM there.

[Darren Wheeler]

It's still showing on the timetables and you can still make bookings on the route.

Thats what makes it all the more annoying. This shows a total contempt for us passengers

I'd be very surprised if this is the case, as we've been told the route is doing really well? I'll ask our route and planning department on our internal forum and see if I can get an answer from them and get back to you.

Thanks Virginboy - I hope its false and from what you say it seems that it is. I can't find anything else on the net substantiating it and I am sure that there would have been an official press release before making it common knowledge.

This does not sound like VS at all - knowingly giving customers false hopes by letting them book flights they know are about to be cancelled completely. As virginboy747 has said, there has clearly been no official internal announcement about the MRU route.

In the past when VS have pulled out of / launched new routes, the staff have generally been told first via I-Fly / other internal channels (or it's leaked via SRB's promotional activity, i.e. he schedules a high profile visit to Chicago at a time when people know VS are about to announce new routes).

Fingers crossed this is a false alarm!

[buns]

I too hope this is a false alarm.

VS would not be the first company to feel the negative effects of speculative rumours circulating[n]

It will take time for VS to redress the situation after damage has been done

buns[:(!]

My first question when troubleshooting anything is to ask :

What evidence do you have of a problem ?

In this case, what evidence do you have directly form Virgin, rather than word of mouth from others. A direct source is more understandable. I am not saying you should name them, but rumours can greatly damage a companys reputation and I personally would be careful about publically mentioning anything without anything really concrete.

Mark

quote:Originally posted by cellnet
I can't believe it but Virgin are pulling the Mauritius route. They have only just started it. I moved all my business from BA 3 months ago and now this! I have called their head office but they are denying it. A lot of mu business associates already know. A colleague in Dubai found out from the GM there.


Is that all you have - one comment and then an apocalytptic statement? How about a more measured forum post with something to back it up?

That said, we're all interested to see what moves VS makes but pulling a route that doesn't make margin / cash is something airlines all over the world are doing LRandC ...Êaka this person would not be surprised.

[Bazz]

I too hope it is a false alarm however times are hard and airlines are looking long and hard at all areas of their operations, not just routes, to see where savings may be made.

We all know that in the corporate world when changes loom it is always business as usual until the formal announcement then the proverbial hits the spinning thingy - it would not be in VS best interests to stop taking bookings ahead of any announcement, it just wouldn't make sense.

Interesting to read the much more refined replies to 'this' post on pprune
I'll refrain from giving the mods more work by quoting...

quote:Originally posted by Bill S
Interesting to read the much more refined replies to 'this' post on pprune
I'll refrain from giving the mods more work by quoting...


The repliers sure didn't mince their words!![:0]

[Darren Wheeler]

quote:Originally posted by DarkAuror
[quote]Originally posted by Bill S
Interesting to read the much more refined replies to 'this' post on pprune
I'll refrain from giving the mods more work by quoting...


The repliers sure didn't mince their words!![:0]


Talk about take no prisoners....

I reckon i will stick with V-Flyer me thinks.

Alex

[Nottingham Nick]

The problem is caused when a new poster joins any internet forum and posts a potentially damaging rumour without properly sourcing it. This is a well known technique used by trolls.

We are fairly unforgiving of trolls on V-Flyer - but (and it is a big but) we tend to give new posters the benefit of any doubt when they first join our happy band. Other forums are less forgiving - as can be seen from the link Bill has posted. [;)]

We have the added benefit here of several people who can (hopefully) validate or rubbish rumours like this from reliable inside sources very quickly.

I have no idea if the OP posting a genuine rumour or is mischief making, but he has been treated with more courtesy here than on pprune, that is for sure. [8D]

Nick

Makes you thankful how nice and friendly people are on here! [y]

DMB

Perhaps the stronger tones of reply were due to some of the OP's additional comments on that site regarding so called Financial Problems at VS and 'are in serious trouble ... heard from an insider.'
I would guess that we would have had strong replies here if similar claims had been made - friendly or no....

Always a concern when a new poster makes similar attacks on multiple fora.
There could even be some basis for the MRU rumour but the connection with financial troubles is unacceptable and probably got an appropriate response on pprune. VS are short of aircraft - they are heavily under-resourced on some routes eg MAN/MCO in peak season particularly weekends in PE/UC so I can see that it may be considered to move a LHR 343 for some months.

Belong to both sites & read Cellnet's postings yesterday.

A bit naughty to come out with such comments - noticed he/she's gone quiet today ?

Maybe an employee of a well known rival ?? !! [;)]

Actually another interesting rumour surfaced on that thread - that VS are about to acquire some ex-BMI 330s to be based at LGW.....

We have made some adjustments to our flying programme for 2009. We are expanding our popular services from Manchester to Barbados and Orlando and we are also adding more services from Gatwick to Montego Bay, Jamaica. We will be reducing our flying schedule to Mauritius during summer 2009.

We will add additional Saturday flights from Manchester to Barbados between 2 May and 7 November 2009, to add to its existing Sunday departures to the Caribbean island. The flights will be on an Airbus A340-300.

There will also be extra seats available between Manchester and Orlando with an additional Sunday departure between 26 April and 8 November 2009, using a Boeing 747-400 aircraft.

After the successful launch of twice-weekly services between Gatwick and Montego Bay, we will now be adding a third weekly service, on Fridays, for the winter 2009 season between 13 November 2009 and 19 March 2010.

All these extra services will be put on sale over the next few days.

Our twice-weekly Heathrow-Mauritius service will stop for the summer on 25 April and resume for the winter season on 13 November 2009.

[Nottingham Nick]

Thanks for the clarification Joey. [y][y]

I have posted a link to this thread from the Manchester thread, so that everyone can see the details.

Nick

[Neil]

Thanks for the info Joey.

Good to see VS using the routes more 'seasonally'. MRU is a perfect winter route but not so in the summer so why not use the extra a/c capacity on a route like MCO which is currently under serviced with the loss of TCD/Excel, seems very good business practice by VS. Nice to see a VS A343 at MAN too.

Neil

Neil

[HighFlyer]

Cheers for the heads-up, JoeyVS [y]

Thanks,
Sarah

Now we've had clarification can we give the new guy some abuse?[}:)]

Miopyk[8D]

[Nottingham Nick]

quote:Originally posted by miopyk
..... can we give the new guy some abuse?...

I think he has had more than his fair share in the pprune thread, and he was partially right, though how going seasonal equates to treating passengers with contempt is a little beyond me. [;)]

Nick