New business class for VA 737 [deferred]

[Justchecking]

So no info on WHEN the 737 refits are likely?

They haven't even announced what they will be, so I think refits are a bit of a way off. Most likely one aircraft will be removed from rotation, fitted with whatever and some PR piece will appear in the Australian before anything actually moves forward there. Also probably won't happen until the A330 is completely/mostly off domestic rotation.

 

[ozstamps]

So we are talking end year probably?

Just do not want to book us on Flexi fares for October on the A330 SYD-PER and upgrade, and find we are switched onto the current uninspiring 737s!

 

[Justchecking]

So we are talking end year probably?

Just do not want to book us on Flexi fares for October on the A330 SYD-PER and upgrade, and find we are switched onto the current uninspiring 737s!

Not an expert in these things but would probably err on the side of their being a fair chance of exactly that happening. Even once they do the showcase it will still be weeks before they have however many planes fitted. I think it was mentioned further up the thread that the new J on 737 isn't to be expected until 2018.... So I'm reading that as a 6-8month lag between exit of the 330 services and rollout of the 737 J 'experience'.

 

[ric_melb]

I do not have any inside knowledge of VA, however this upgrading of Business class on east/west 737's has only just been announced. Agree with justchecking decision re what seats will be used hasn't yet been announced, and no doubt the conversions will take place plane by plane. Given October is only 3 months away my guess is no conversions will have taken place. So substitution of an A330 by a current 737 is possible.

 

[Justchecking]

Since VA have described their new 737 J as "a quantum leap in domestic business class", what would constitute a quantum leap for you? Personally I can't imagine anything installed on a single aisle aircraft to represent a quantum leap. VA has already set the bar at lie flat with the A330 so where can you go from there? We've seen the options, they aren't amazing.

Must haves to qualify as newsworthy would have to include....

- Installed entertainment screen.
- Some kind of deep recline/sleep ability.
- Some privacy measure - bonus points if it's direct aisle access (doubtful).
- Maybe a silly massage function for the novelty.
- Probably a pod design as these tend to look a lot more futuristic/upmarket than a seat alone
- They might squeeze a nespresso machine in somewhere
- MUST upgrade the food offering, perhaps the pantry will got to be replaced by decent meal options.
- Where is the jacket closet going to be?
- Probably either reduce the J cabin to 6 seats, staggered layout or go all out and increase it to 12, reducing Y.

We know they aren't getting a shiny new MAX with boeings lie flat in it, to showcase as all those deliveries have been pushed back to 2019. Whatever is being installed has to fit in a current Sky 737.

 

[bean]

I personally hate the cocooned trend of business and first-its like an isolated solitary confinement jail cell. I like open plan, especially when travelling with family.

 

[Tallfont]

I personally hate the cocooned trend of business and first-its like an isolated solitary confinement jail cell. I like open plan, especially when travelling with family.

And I love it! But then 95% or more of my travel is solo. But even with Mrs Tallfont it is OK!

 

[fewings85]

I like the cocoon style for solo travel but if you are with your partner or a travel buddy it can feel a bit isolated/lonely if you ant to chat. If you are anti-social its good

Have they now pulled the A330 off of PER-SYD red eye flights? Assuming for the HKG flights? I have a flight as part of international travel on the 16th August PER-SYD and just got a notification, it was originally a A330, it has now been downgraded to a 737. Red eye flight. Checked all the days around that date and every red eye is a 737 now between PER-SYD. I am in J. Every other flight including my travel day and the days around it all use A330's for nearly all except the red eye. Needless to say I am very annoyed as you would be. I only check around my date so not sure what other months are looking like.

I would of thought they would may want to keep the 330's on the red eye due to people wanting to sleep and the best time to make use of the lay flay bed. Well that's how passengers would think but maybe VA doesn't think like that!!

Has anyone successful got any form of compensation or got anything out of VA for downgrading, wondering if its worth contacting them, I did a upgrade me points to J and don't know if I would of bothered if I knew it was going to be a b737. I know their policy is they have in place states the operating aircraft can change without notice however. As its been stated numerous times here before there is no comparison between the B737 and A330 product. Looking at the pricing the tickets outright on my flying day are more expensive than any of the flights with the A330 ha! I really wish, and ive seen it many times complained about here, they would price the 737 flights accordingly to the product quality, its amazing they can charge so much for an inferior product.

I'm on flying to LAX so would of really liked the lay flat of the a330 to get some rest before the onward journey.

 

[moa999]

Since VA have described their new 737 J as "a quantum leap in domestic business class", what would constitute a quantum leap for you?

I think you miss spin vs reality.
All they've annouced so far is an improvement on what they have in the 737s.
I see something between the 330 and 737

 

[Jurahn]

Has anyone successful got any form of compensation or got anything out of VA for downgrading, wondering if its worth contacting them, I did a upgrade me points to J and don't know if I would of bothered if I knew it was going to be a b737. I know their policy is they have in place states the operating aircraft can change without notice however.

I'm on flying to LAX so would of really liked the lay flat of the a330 to get some rest before the onward journey.

The same thing happened to me earlier this year as part of a US itinerary - the initial PER-SYD sector was swapped out for a 737, however I wasn't notified, I only found out about the change when I was checking my itinerary. Pretty annoyed not to be advised, especially as the entire trip was a revenue J fare. I complained and (politely) requested consideration of compensation of either $value or points or possibly both - others had commented in previous threads that when they'd been downgraded, they received a considerable number of points as well as $compensation as well. No such luck for me - the email I received of course stated the "change of operating aircraft policy" and also that it would "not be appropriate to compensate" every time this change occurred, however they did (albeit reluctantly, from the wording) give me 10,000 points. I wasn't overly impressed as I've seen posts from pax who have received 20,000 points for things such as not getting lounge access in LAX, so I would have thought a J downgrade from A330 to 737 would be worth more than the 10K I received - however it was quite obvious that's all I was going to get!

Their reply also stated: "It may assist for future bookings to contact our agents in the Guest Contact Centre who would be happy to advise which aircraft is allocated at the time of booking" which peeved me no end, as did "Where operational requirements necessitate that the original aircraft allocated to a particular route be replaced, we will do our utmost to contact our Business Class guests to advise them of the change as soon as possible, and offer alternatives" - er, I was well aware of what aircraft was allocated at the time of booking because I booked the flight myself and deliberately chose that flight because it was the A330, something which I made quite clear in the complaint I sent, AND that I had NOT been notified of the aircraft change so they certainly didn't "do their utmost" to contact me on that occasion.

 

[Pleb Status]

The same thing happened to me earlier this year as part of a US itinerary - the initial PER-SYD sector was swapped out for a 737, however I wasn't notified, I only found out about the change when I was checking my itinerary. Pretty annoyed not to be advised, especially as the entire trip was a revenue J fare. I complained and (politely) requested consideration of compensation of either $value or points or possibly both - others had commented in previous threads that when they'd been downgraded, they received a considerable number of points as well as $compensation as well. No such luck for me - the email I received of course stated the "change of operating aircraft policy" and also that it would "not be appropriate to compensate" every time this change occurred, however they did (albeit reluctantly, from the wording) give me 10,000 points. I wasn't overly impressed as I've seen posts from pax who have received 20,000 points for things such as not getting lounge access in LAX, so I would have thought a J downgrade from A330 to 737 would be worth more than the 10K I received - however it was quite obvious that's all I was going to get!

Their reply also stated: "It may assist for future bookings to contact our agents in the Guest Contact Centre who would be happy to advise which aircraft is allocated at the time of booking" which peeved me no end, as did "Where operational requirements necessitate that the original aircraft allocated to a particular route be replaced, we will do our utmost to contact our Business Class guests to advise them of the change as soon as possible, and offer alternatives" - er, I was well aware of what aircraft was allocated at the time of booking because I booked the flight myself and deliberately chose that flight because it was the A330, something which I made quite clear in the complaint I sent, AND that I had NOT been notified of the aircraft change so they certainly didn't "do their utmost" to contact me on that occasion.

I have flown in J hundreds of times on tens of airlines in my life. Numerous changes to the aircraft operating those flights have occurred over the years.

No airline in the entire world has ever contacted me to advise of an operating aircraft change when the same class of service has been available. They all have stated that J is J. This includes tens of occasions with QF when I was a P1.

In fact, I cannot recall being contacted when travelling in F and an aircraft change has been made. QF were particularly bad for this when subbing in a 747 when you originally booked the 380.

 

[fewings85]

I should actually make it more clear, I wasn't actually notified with mine, I received a text message/email with a change to my flight, opened it up and all it actually was, was a change of time and all it was, was ten minutes on the departure from 11.45pm to 11.55pm. There was no mention of aircraft change, I assume that they did however change that at the same time as well.. It wasn't until I went into my booking yesterday I noticed the aircraft change as well.

However the only other time I have had the a330 switched out to a 737 was earlier this year on a flight PER- MEL and around 4 hrs before the flights I received an SMS along the lines of "We regret to inform you that due to technical issues the scheduled a330 VA*** will now be operated by a B737-800. We apologise for any inconvenience"

For them to send a text out like that they must be aware that people are upset specially J guests when they book an A330 flight only for it to be swapped with a 737. They clearly know the products inferior.

They honestly just really need to adjust the pricing, its ridiculous they charge the same amount, sometimes even more for such an inferior product. I'm going to flick them an email to see what sort of response I can get out of them. I don't really have an option for another flight as I said im in transit to LA so there isn't anything else I can swap too but maybe I can scam 10,000 points or similar.

 

[Jurahn]

I should actually make it more clear, I wasn't actually notified with mine, I received a text message/email with a change to my flight, opened it up and all it actually was, was a change of time and all it was, was ten minutes on the departure from 11.45pm to 11.55pm. There was no mention of aircraft change, I assume that they did however change that at the same time as well.. It wasn't until I went into my booking yesterday I noticed the aircraft change as well.

Same thing with mine - I received an email a couple of months out with an arrival time change for the PER-SYD flight of around 5-10 minutes, no mention of aircraft change but like you, I suspect that's when the swap happened.

 

[DavidFlynn]

So no info on WHEN the 737 refits are likely?

If you're speaking of the Virgin Australia 'new Perth product', we're hearing of a launch of the seat (aka curtains pulled back for the big reveal) by December 2017 but the seat itself won't take flight until the second half of 2018.

 

[Jurahn]

I have flown in J hundreds of times on tens of airlines in my life. Numerous changes to the aircraft operating those flights have occurred over the years.

No airline in the entire world has ever contacted me to advise of an operating aircraft change when the same class of service has been available. They all have stated that J is J. This includes tens of occasions with QF when I was a P1.

In fact, I cannot recall being contacted when travelling in F and an aircraft change has been made. QF were particularly bad for this when subbing in a 747 when you originally booked the 380.

And that's fine (well, not "fine" but just "one of those things") if lack of notification is standard practice - what I object to is VA spinning the "Where operational requirements necessitate that the original aircraft allocated to a particular route be replaced, we will do our utmost to contact our Business Class guests to advise them of the change as soon as possible, and offer alternatives" line, which sounds good, but they're obviously either inconsistent (i.e. some pax are contacted, others aren't) or they don't actually do it at all!

 

[docjames]

I should actually make it more clear, I wasn't actually notified with mine, I received a text message/email with a change to my flight, opened it up and all it actually was, was a change of time and all it was, was ten minutes on the departure from 11.45pm to 11.55pm. There was no mention of aircraft change, I assume that they did however change that at the same time as well.. It wasn't until I went into my booking yesterday I noticed the aircraft change as well.

.

I think the departure time of the flight is important - the lie flat seat much more important on a 2355 departure than a 1155 departure. I too would be peeved to have booked on an A330 vs 738 and not get the A330 seating.

 

[Justchecking]

If you're speaking of the Virgin Australia 'new Perth product', we're hearing of a launch of the seat (aka curtains pulled back for the big reveal) by December 2017 but the seat itself won't take flight until the second half of 2018.

Wow, even more disappointing than anticipated. I thought they might launch by March 2018 and possibly reveal by Oct 2017.

 

[DavidFlynn]

Wow, even more disappointing than anticipated. I thought they might launch by March 2018 and possibly reveal by Oct 2017.

Just as a data point, Virgin's A330/B777 business class was revealed in September 2014 and was slated to began flying in March 2015 (actually pushed back to August 2015 due to certification issues) so there would have been a six-month gap there.

If we allow a December 2017 reveal and flights from July 2018 (officially being 'second half of the year), this would be close to that same timeframe – but I'm hearing later than July.

 

[clipped_wings]

If you're speaking of the Virgin Australia 'new Perth product', we're hearing of a launch of the seat (aka curtains pulled back for the big reveal) by December 2017 but the seat itself won't take flight until the second half of 2018.

Then I guess the genius collective at VA Media Inc. couldn't blame a passenger for putting their bum on someone else's seat until then.......

 

[fewings85]

I think the departure time of the flight is important - the lie flat seat much more important on a 2355 departure than a 1155 departure. I too would be peeved to have booked on an A330 vs 738 and not get the A330 seating.

yes I am quite peeved, and with an onwards LAX flight which I am only in economy x I was looking forward to getting abit of rest on the overnight flight. As I was saying it seems strange they pull them from the Red eye legs. But maybe VA have different reasons/logic to our train of thought regarding the red eye/a330 usage.

I haven't emailed them yet but I may do still