I have had enough.... [Offloaded after Flight not called in VA lounge]

[lovestotravel]

I have leaned in over 1000 flights, never to trust a board or wait for announcements.

That's pretty much the summary!

 

[legroom]

....Qantas will also give the mobile number a call in the booking if not at the gate, especially if there are bags checked-in.

+1

Happened to me

Running breathless past security when I got the phone call.

Terrible traffic on the road that day

.....I have leaned in over 1000 flights, never to trust a display board or wait for announcements.

Wisdom comes from experience - good and bad !

 

[samh004]

Seeing as everyone else is sharing...

One of the first things I do when I get to the lounge is get my BP re-printed (mainly for my collection, but it serves a dual purpose as the boarding time is printed on the BP), this gives me the time, barring delays, I should be out the door. Usually I'm in the lounge with plenty of time to spare too, so by the boarding time I'm getting bored and the walk will do me good. I don't like waiting around for a boarding call, as I can tell the time myself and will know when to go.

That said, if it's late or early, I'd expect to be notified in some way. An announcement in the lounge/terminal, an SMS to my mobile, even a phone call once, I've received all that and am thankful for that, though my nature is to not wait around after the printed boarding time (with the exception of course being the F lounge).

In the instance on this thread, sounds like exceptionally poor service was offered, however, I wouldn't have waited around in the lounge for so long... especially after the scheduled departure time. Normally on QF it's about 20 minutes from boarding to departure, so if I hadn't heard anything 10 minutes prior to departure, I'd have got up and asked the question. No point waiting until 10 minutes after...

 

[oz_mark]

Another thread from last year regarding the MEL DJ lounge.

I have leaned in over 1000 flights, never to trust a display board or wait for announcements.

Took me a lot less than 1000 flights to learn not to trust displays in the Virgin Lounge :shock:


One time I did wonder down to the gate for the scheduled departure. Watched the board cycle through the whole Boarding, Flight Closed cycle - all the while no aircraft in sight.

 

[opusman]

As the Virgin rep said - there are thousands of passengers a day. I'm guessing individual pages may not always be possible.

Much easier and quicker to do an individual pax page than offload baggage though. Qantas do this all the time. I have even heard pages in the J lounge for Jetstar pax who have failed to board. It's not rational that Virgin would be unable to do this as a general rule, so the logical conclusion is that in this particular instance someone stuffed up.

 

[medhead]

IME there is a big difference between the lounge and the gate. As per my earlier post I asked about a VA flight in SYD and that prompted the lounge to call the flight. As I was walking to the aircraft in the general concourse, the gate was individually paging me. So the bigger issue seems to be a disconnect between the gate and the lounge. Why don't the gate staff think to call the lounge in such a situation?

 

[Homer]

I think the VA SYD lounge has a bit of carefree attitude to boarding calls. When the new level first opened they weren't making announcements up there and I only discovered this when I asked somebody at the desk because I'm also a bit OCD about checking the board... I think they are now because I heard one a couple of weeks ago but if they aren't going to call flights then I think it needs to be made absolutely clear to people. Also on more than one occasion I've walked up to the desk and inquired about my flight because the boarding time had come and gone and yet the status on the screen hadn't changed. Each time the agent has telephoned the gate and, sure enough, the flight has been boarding. One time the agent even said something like "Oh that's right. I need to announce that one..." So I can understand the OP's frustration.

 

[JohnPhelan]

IME there is a big difference between the lounge and the gate. As per my earlier post I asked about a VA flight in SYD and that prompted the lounge to call the flight. As I was walking to the aircraft in the general concourse, the gate was individually paging me. So the bigger issue seems to be a disconnect between the gate and the lounge. Why don't the gate staff think to call the lounge in such a situation?

And - given that JohnK's boarding pass had been scanned at The Lounge when he entered - the VA system knew exactly where he was! Why didn't the gate then ring The Lounge so they could page him?

Or does the version of Sabre that VA uses not let the gate staff see this info? And if not, why not?

 

[Plutonus]

What is all this business about the lounge knowing what passengers are in there because of their boarding pass? Is this some special thing I miss out on?

In my experience, I've only had the staff at the entrance glance at my BP, hardly long enough to write down all my details and never scanned. I assume they just glance to see status and class of travel.

 

[serfty]

Certainly there were announcements audible both Upstairs and downstairs on Saturday.

 

[oz_mark]

What is all this business about the lounge knowing what passengers are in there because of their boarding pass? Is this some special thing I miss out on?

In my experience, I've only had the staff at the entrance glance at my BP, hardly long enough to write down all my details and never scanned. I assume they just glance to see status and class of travel.

Virgin always seem to want to scan my card.

Anyway, if you are looking for a status passenger, wouldn't the lounge be a good place to try?

Qantas do it often, if Mr XYZ is in the lounge.......

 

[kpc]

Virgin always seem to want to scan my card.

Anyway, if you are looking for a status passenger, wouldn't the lounge be a good place to try?

Qantas do it often, if Mr XYZ is in the lounge.......

Happened to me a heap of times on various airlines....it's not a Virgin thing.

Lesson learned now I'm at the gate early every time*

*unless at an AFF meet

Or sitting in the F lounge!

This is not unique to DJ lounges....as I found out too after being offoaded!:evil:
http://www.australianfrequentflyer....on/poor-mel-qf-f-lounge-32953.html#post489892

 

[Pushka]

Qantas rings passengers who haven't boarded. One time, they were late announcing the boarding call in the Adelaide lounge and then there was a long queue to board. While Mr Pushka was in the queue, Qantas rang him and asked him where he was. Along with several people in the queue.

They always scan my boarding pass. And if I have just used my mobile they always print one out for me.

 

[eastwest101]

I agree that SYD is the worst from a point of view of The Lounge and inaccurate information boards. Seems to be a general communication thing with VA staff but also not limited to SYD. At another airport I had to check-in (HLO) and the check-in counters sent me running to the gate as their information and the information boards showed my flight as either "closed" or "final boarding". Of course when I ran up to the gate, the operating aircraft had not even arrived at the gate yet! Let alone be unloaded and finally boarding started about 30-45mins later, interestingly the airports web site for arrival and departure times was more accurate and up to date than the information given to the VA staff and on the display boards in the airport. This delay would have been known about by VA when the operating aircraft took off late at least 1-2 hours before its delayed arrival and I am sure that this happens quite often at a lot of airports as well.

Agree that the info boards are works of fiction and are currently meaningless, and pages either should be done consistently, or an alternative looked at that is timely and accurate.

The official VA rep may have missed it but this was the subject of quite a lengthy thread in its own right a few months ago.

 

[Princess Fiona]

This is not unique to DJ lounges....as I found out too after being offoaded!:evil:
http://www.australianfrequentflyer....on/poor-mel-qf-f-lounge-32953.html#post489892

A salutary tale kpc. IMO the issues are the same but different.
There are many more reported instances on here of passengers including myself nearly missing VA flights whilst in the various VA Lounges due to no call, late call, or inadequate call from the Lounge staff and/or the boards are not up to date.
This is IMHO somewhat different to being offloaded on a JQ Domestic flight at the Int Terminal due to a failure of communications between JQ and the QF F Lounge.
IME there is night and day between the experience of waiting for a flight in the QF and VA lounges.
In the former, I can relax keep an eye on the departures board and listen for the announcements, in the latter I can pace backwards and forwards from the departures board, listen for the announcements, check multiple times with the staff and finally take a gamble that when I decide to leave the lounge the flight will soon be boarding and I won't get the dreaded personal invitation.

I think that VA need to sort this out, it is simply not good enough.

 

[JohnK]

I did not ask for sympathy and I have said missing the flight was my responsibility. But at the same time you cannot say the lounge staff or gate staff do a great job. There was an obvious breakdown in communication yesterday and that is not really good enough.

- Checked in ~4:00pm with checked bag for a 5:10pm flight
- Was in lounge ~4:10pm
- I heard various flights called throughout my stay in the lounge. Some of these flights were called more than once and a few of them called 3-4 times. I do recall 2 flights in particular where 3-4 names were paged more than once as they had failed to board and flight was awaiting immediate departure
- I was sitting at the desktops near reception and did not hear my flight called. But I did hear every other boarding call and did not hear the OOL flight called? Twice?
- I checked the board every 3-4 minutes for an update. The next 5-6 flights had boarding or "Go to Gate" next to them. The OOL flight has no status. Not even "Go to Gate".
- I did not think anything was wrong as the departure time had changed from 17:10->17:15->17:20. I have seen this so many times and it is not uncommon for my flights to have these sorts of delays. A few weeks ago I witnessed the departure time on the OOL flight updated 5-6 times.
-- One thing that should have triggered alarm bells was I witnessed the board for the 6:10pm OOL flight momentarily change to Closed and at the time thought that was strange but no sooner did that happen and the status went back to blank again.
- When I approached the service desk and asked about status of my flight handing over boarding pass she mentioned something along lines of "That flight is closed and you have been offloaded." At which point I made mention that there were no boarding calls and she replied "My supervisor and I called that flight twice". Supervisor? Why bring supervisor into discussion? To add more weight to discussion? Again I mentioned to her that she did not call the flight and if the flight was indeed on Final Call and about to be Closed "why did you not page me in the lounge?" To which the response was blank. Then she said to me "Best I can do is put you on next available flight". And she then had the hide to ask "Do you want me to do that for you?". What a silly question.

Hindsight says I should have gone to desk at 16:45 or 16:50 but I didn't and today I am paying for it. I did not get into Brisbane until 11:30pm and I am tired.

Not fair for me to start comparing Virgin to Qantas but with Qantas I would have received a phone call that flight is about to be close and wanting to know my whereabouts.

 

[notzac]

We are in the business of taking care of our tiered members, and we'll be passing on the feedback though to our Grounds Ops and Lounge teams.

I know a bunch of people have already said this, but I think it's an important point of feedback: why can't the flight information screens (in the lounges if nowhere else) be controlled by VA? If the screens got their feed from your departure control system (and actually showed things like changing from "Boarding Soon" to "Boarding" when the GA actually starts boarding the flight), the occurrence of pax in the lounge missing or nearly missing their flight would drop.

I'm usually OCD about this sort of stuff, but I narrowly made a SYD-MEL flight once due to no announcements and incorrect information on the information screens in the lounge (and to be fair, I wasn't paying attention to the time either) -- so JohnK's situation is hardly an isolated event.

 

[SeatBackForward]

So John, let me get this right, you're complaining that Virgin needs to change their boarding procedures because of what happened to you - and possibly to some others.

Remember this?

I really do not understand why the majority need to change to satisfy a minority?
http://www.australianfrequentflyer....s-the-beef-with-halal-48927-3.html#post793643

 

[Pushka]

So John, let me get this right, you're complaining that Virgin needs to change their boarding procedures because of what happened to you - and possibly to some others.

Remember this?

Well, if what JohnK is describing is correct, it applies to all of those in the lounge waiting for that flight. And really not sure where the minority comes from anyway. It could be a very frequent event but I'm betting not all flyers are members of this forum.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Well, if what JohnK is describing is correct, it applies to all of those in the lounge waiting for that flight. And really not sure where the minority comes from anyway. It could be a very frequent event but I'm betting not all flyers are members of this forum.

I would say that the numbers of "failure to board" would constitute the minority.