Feeling ripped off by Virgin advertising - we now serve food and beverage

[cdp88]

Those raspberry muffins are getting a good run out; I've had three of the things in the last three days :-|

I am boycotting the muffin. I don't consider it to be food. If only I could boycott Virgin, sadly their slightly cheaper flights mean that I often end up on them for work.

 

[anat0l]

I am boycotting the muffin. I don't consider it to be food.

Despite the high sugar, you have to admit that it goes pretty swell with a cup of tea or coffee.

If only they weren't so dry.

 

[vitagen]

Adl-Per last night departing at 1800, lucky I had a feed in the lounge, the "snack" on board consisted of a packet of fruit and nut mix and a tomato and butter half sandwich which was putrid

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Adl-Per last night departing at 1800, lucky I had a feed in the lounge, the "snack" on board consisted of a packet of fruit and nut mix and a tomato and butter half sandwich which was putrid

Isn't 1800 a "dinner" flight? Come to think of it, don't transcon flights always get a full meal or isn't ADL-PER considered transcon?

This is evidence of exactly what many of us believe. The hotch-potch mess, which is VAs so called food offering on board, continues to confuse many frequent VA flyers. How can infrequent flyers be expected to understand the offering. It's an absolute fail for the VA management team to allow such a farce to continue.

 

[JohnK]

Adl-Per last night departing at 1800, lucky I had a feed in the lounge, the "snack" on board consisted of a packet of fruit and nut mix and a tomato and butter half sandwich which was putrid

SYD-BNE departing at 1805 last night on QF. Choice of chicken curry with vegetables and rice and a salad option. Friday night was shepherd's pie.

Curry is not my favourite but this was mild and the chicken was not drowned in the curry. Quite tasty and surprisingly there were quite a few pieces of chicken. Much better than a lot of the food one can find in the VA lounge.

And I am guessing the cost of the meal to Qantas would only be a fraction more than what the snack costs Virgin. Seriously though I do not think the Virgin FAs would be able to complete the meal service in time.

Unfortunately back with VA next 2 weeks.

 

[pauly7]

Flight MEL to LST.

VA FA apologizes and makes the following very strange announcement as we take off:

Sorry no tea or coffee because the sector is too short for them to serve (1hr5min) and the 737 was about 65% full...

Apologies in advance for such a small dinner, although it may be dinner time (7pm flight) in most people's books, the 'company' does not designate it as such and therefore have loaded us with a small packet of nuts for everyone. We apologize in advance if this does not fill you guys up and we are providing feedback to management.

I was absolutely blown away!! Clearly this particular lady has been copping some direct feedback and wanted to pre-empt the miserable 'catering' that had been loaded!!

On the tea and coffee front I suggest that the VA FA's go to the QF FA school and get a lesson on speed catering on short sectors. Honestly...

 

[esseeeayeenn]

On the tea and coffee front I suggest that the VA FA's go to the QF FA school and get a lesson on speed catering on short sectors. Honestly...

On the speed catering front I'd recommend they learn from IB.
They put both VA & QF to shame.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Wow that's incredible, no tea and coffee? That's so easy for them to do. They seriously do need to go watch a Qantas crew at work.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

And we foolishly thought VA in-flight pickings couldn't get any worse. They sure showed us!

 

[anat0l]

Wow that's incredible, no tea and coffee? That's so easy for them to do. They seriously do need to go watch a Qantas crew at work.

I believe outside of longer sectors and breakfast flights, QF don't offer tea or coffee any more, except in Business Class?

 

[Fiches Mouser]

Flight MEL to LST.

VA FA apologizes and makes the following very strange announcement as we take off:

Sorry no tea or coffee because the sector is too short for them to serve (1hr5min) and the 737 was about 65% full...

Apologies in advance for such a small dinner, although it may be dinner time (7pm flight) in most people's books, the 'company' does not designate it as such and therefore have loaded us with a small packet of nuts for everyone. We apologize in advance if this does not fill you guys up and we are providing feedback to management.

I was absolutely blown away!! Clearly this particular lady has been copping some direct feedback and wanted to pre-empt the miserable 'catering' that had been loaded!!

On the tea and coffee front I suggest that the VA FA's go to the QF FA school and get a lesson on speed catering on short sectors. Honestly...

I know the take away from this is instinctively negative (and the tea/coffee thing is a pretty big fail), but I'm feeling optimistic that we're not alone here!

The fact that an FA is apologising for a lack of food at dinner time is really quite encouraging – it means it's a known issue.

Or maybe I'm just grasping at straws... I've gotten pretty use to those coughpy nuts.

 

[dfcatch]

Yep. It's absolutely bull****.

VA couldn't organize a $&&& in a brothel.

I REALLY want the airline to succeed but I fear there's is something MAJORLY wrong internally.

The product is average at best, staff morale is through the floor, there is a major disconnect between VFF and VA re: the airline product vs frequent flyers, the list goes on.

VA's original problem was that they were a bit "half-pregnant".

Well - now they seem like they've had half an abortion.

Yes - the product is as mangled as that analogy sounds.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

I believe outside of longer sectors and breakfast flights, QF don't offer tea or coffee any more, except in Business Class?

Not in my experience. Had a coffee on monday arvo mel to adl. 55 min flight. Full in economy. No issues

 

[pauly7]

The fact that an FA is apologising for a lack of food at dinner time is really quite encouraging – it means it's a known issue.

Or maybe I'm just grasping at straws... I've gotten pretty use to those coughpy nuts.

I feel a little bit the same way actually - clearly it is universal known feedba

 

[pauly7]

I believe outside of longer sectors and breakfast flights, QF don't offer tea or coffee any more, except in Business Class?

I'm sure I had it literally last week! On both QF and QFlink - hence my comment VA should go and watch a QF crew power through a short sector meal (proper meal), beverages and tea/coffee

 

[anat0l]

Not in my experience. Had a coffee on monday arvo mel to adl. 55 min flight. Full in economy. No issues

I'm sure I had it literally last week! On both QF and QFlink - hence my comment VA should go and watch a QF crew power through a short sector meal (proper meal), beverages and tea/coffee

My mistake... the last time I flew QF domestic Y (which is at least 1 year ago now), I thought I remembered that it was not a breakfast service, but all that appeared to be offered was cold drinks. Maybe tea and coffee was available on request, but I can't remember now.

In any case, good to hear that tea and coffee are available at all times.

The only QF service I have been on where no service has been offered at all was GLT/ROK, a 25 minute (gate to gate, not wheels up to touch down) QantasLink flight. Fair enough, I guess.

Begs to reason with the VA service in question with no tea or coffee, surely other drinks would have been available; if they were rather nice and especially apologetic, perhaps the Economy cabin would have been offered any other beverage, free of charge.

In a more pragmatic way, I wonder what is truly the bigger grievance - no tea/coffee, or only nuts for the meal service?

 

[pauly7]

Begs to reason with the VA service in question with no tea or coffee, surely other drinks would have been available; if they were rather nice and especially apologetic, perhaps the Economy cabin would have been offered any other beverage, free of charge.

In a more pragmatic way, I wonder what is truly the bigger grievance - no tea/coffee, or only nuts for the meal service?

Yes we were offered cups of water or juice. And I've almost given up on airing my grievances on VA catering apart from the fact I like to contribute to the AFF community

 

[Aussie_flyer]

You'll be disappointed to know Qantaslink dont offer a meal or drink on Barcaldine to Longreach (66 miles)

 

[Deleted member 29185]

I wonder what is truly the bigger grievance - no tea/coffee, or only nuts for the meal service?

It's the same thing, isn't it? A failure to be anything but an LCC.

(I hate using that cliché, but the trouble is, that's exactly the way it's coming across. We had an LCC at a reasonable cost, now we have an LCC at a ridiculous cost.)

 

[Julesmac]

I wonder if there would be any action from VA if some similar comments were posted on Facebook? Freind of mine works for one of the Big Four banks in a senior position. They have a room in their head office in Melb which is like a bunker absolutely filled with screens scrolling with constant FB updates. He told me, believe me when there are derogatory comments about the bank they are all over it. Worth a shot since so many of us are trapped into flying VA for whatever reasons.
Personally I grab a cappuccino & a well filled roll at the airport and they can stick their nuts.