Pulled off Flight and still 15min to go:(

[Princess Fiona]

Perhaps they only call names when they have check luggage, easier to actually make an announcement than pull the bags.

But with 15 mins I would still expect to be able to board, even on Virgin. Consider my expectations downgraded for Virgin.

Matt

When I had a personal page in the lounge for a flight where a boarding announcement hadn't been made I had no checked luggage.

 

[JohnK]

It also seems that you cannot rely on Virgin Lounge staff to call all flights, there was also a similar thread a while ago, if you were not personally paged in the Lounge or at the Gate then it follows that they closed the flight, or had some reason to close the flight and not make such a big effort to find you!

Happened to me last year.

Flight delayed, not called in lounge, I was not paged and I had checked luggage. I was put on next flight without charge. And I was given compensation by customer care for the inconvenience.

Yes I know strictly speaking it is also my fault but you can't expect people to sit around at the gate waiting through delays.

Virgin have lounges. Call the flights in the lounge. If a passenger fails to board then page their name out in the terminal at least once. If they are a status passenger then have them paged in the lounge as well.

 

[jazza1971]

I sat in the BNE lounge one evening waiting for 'boarding' to show up on the screen for a flight to Adelaide, after about 20 mins of it saying nothing I went up to the folks at the desk and asked the status, they made a call to the gate and what do you know, final call about to close.....I said to the lounge staff what's the deal with that and they were sorry the gate never called, so off I went at a great rate of knots to hear them calling the flight in the lounge and then a bunch of 'paging passengers a,c,b,d,e,f,g come to gate x now' in the terminal

lesson learnt, now I not rely on the screens without checking!

 

[777]

Personally, I have never missed a flight but it is my policy to remain in the lounge until the flight is indicated as boarding. This can be done either by the boarding calls, the information displays, or looking out at the passengers getting on.

The problem with this is that VAs signage and calls are often unreliable. Flights are often delayed so much that I would have lost many hours of my life if I went to the gate always at the indicated time on the boarding pass. As it is, I often head to a flight when it says boarding and discover that it doesn't actually start for another 20 minutes.

My view is that if the airline provides information around the terminal, customers are entitled to assume it's accurate.

 

[eastwest101]

Personally, I have never missed a flight but it is my policy to remain in the lounge until the flight is indicated as boarding. This can be done either by the boarding calls, the information displays, or looking out at the passengers getting on.

The problem with this is that VAs signage and calls are often unreliable. Flights are often delayed so much that I would have lost many hours of my life if I went to the gate always at the indicated time on the boarding pass. As it is, I often head to a flight when it says boarding and discover that it doesn't actually start for another 20 minutes.

My view is that if the airline provides information around the terminal, customers are entitled to assume it's accurate.

Exactly - my experience as well. I think what we are seeing here seems to be quite a "manual" process where a VA flight is boarding at the gate, and quite often, the ground crew will forget to tell the lounge that the flight is now boarding, if the Lounge staff are reliant on the often misleading and inaccurate airport controlled FIDS, then they may also miss the opportunity to call the flight in the lounge. Then I imagine the gate phones the lounge asking where a number of their passengers are because, the flight is boarded and they have a bunch of pax checked in but not boarded.

I have noticed that VA have had a lot of IT problems associated with late/slow load sheets and manifests lately, hopefully the VA IT Web Team is not on the job otherwise it will never be fixed!

So bad/missing information + human error = massive inconsistency

The thing I am interested in, is whether people have noticed particular airports or particular airlines have the same problems, or somehow manage to avoid these problems. i.e. Is it an airline/systems problem? A particular airport or even terminal problem? Or more of a random inconsistency that we could attribute some other cause to such as staff and rosters?

 

[danintas]

This is my pet hate with Virgin. The monitors are works of fiction, and the lounge announcements are unreliable.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Personally, I think that being at the gate 15 mins before actual plane departure is playing with fire.
In fact, I am usually there half an hour before, have been using the VA lounge even prior to me being PS, (paying Aud$65 per entry), I would not leave it that late, at 15 mins/t-15, no matter unlike the QF board, that says its a 3 mins walk to the gate from the QP.
Bad of me to say it, lucky there was another "last" VA flight from MEL - SYD.
Also, maybe its that VA staff wanted to "officially" earn their keep! Just like that the security screening people, when they do their "extra", ie, the patdown with the wand, will earn more than merely people going through the domestic xray and having their bags xrayed.

 

[k_sheep]

Another one who now goes 20 mins before departure, no matter what the boards say. Mainly because once I was enjoying my time in the lounge and no announcement for my flight - realised 15min out and walked out, only to hear my personal page. Got to the flight less than 15 seconds after the page, and they said that I'd been offloaded. Why make an announcement if you're already off?

 

[JohnK]

Personally, I think that being at the gate 15 mins before actual plane departure is playing with fire.

Define departure? Scheduled or estimated?

I have been in the SYD lounge waiting for a delayed OOL flight and the estimated departure changed ~4 times. I'm not going to the gate early to witness VA staff trying to get things right.

And I wish people would stop making up excuses for airline staff. It's not rocket science. It's not that difficult. It's part of their job.

A few minutes after boarding commences call the lounge for a general boarding call followed up 5-10 minutes later with a final boarding call. Everyone happy.

 

[jackthomas]

I missed a flight on a family holiday when i was (much) younger, and the horror in my parents face and the stress has never left me.

I always make sure I leave the lounge at Boarding time exactly, I enjoy the Priority Boarding and ensuring I have overhead luggage space and can get settled in before everyone else, especially if I'm seated in Y.

Looks like VA is already following up with you, as they should. Do not believe the fare change is fair in this instance.

 

[phily]

Similarly here. In fact I "Go To Gate" 30 minutes prior to departure, regardless.

Same with me. I leave the Lounge at least 30 mins before departure, and 40 mins if International. To rely on seeing workers moving around the plane as an indication of its departure time is unwise. In fact, I like to board early so that I have a decent chance of finding space in the overhead bins, and if International and in J or F so that I can enjoy a couple of glasses of bubbles.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

I have noticed Virgin seem to be trying to acheive early departures lately.
And early arrivals although this usually just means less flying time with service and extra time in a holding pattern with no service while air traffic control makes the aircraft wait for its original landing slot.
I've never really understood this strategy as surely it must burn more fuel.

I also think they risk becoming "the boy who cried wolf" with early boarding notices.
I have seen "Go to gate" used so often as a euphemism for "Flight delayed" that I now ignore it completely.
I have also been called from the lounge up to 50 minutes before the scheduled departure time.
Even responding to the "this flight has reached the final stages of boarding" has often resulted in a long queue at the gate.

I guess I will take the OP's experience as a warning that I indulge my preference for boarding at the last minute at my peril.

 

[ermen]

what if the OP just ran past the counters and down the aerobridge and the doors were still open?

 

[williamsf1]

what if the OP just ran past the counters and down the aerobridge and the doors were still open?

I think if he did that he would be spending a night in the lock up!

 

[juddles]

.....I have seen "Go to gate" used so often as a euphemism for "Flight delayed" that I now ignore it completely......

It is probably because of PAX who ignore/turn up last/make their own rules, that the boarding system and displays are imprecise. The airlines are trying to manage the personalities.

Getting back to the OP, I insist that it is completely unreasonable for passengers to feel they have a right to swan up to the gate 15 minutes before actual departure time. The belief that they can get away with that has to include the notion that almost all of the other passengers HAVE TO go to the gate before that so the plane can actually get loaded.

 

[stickshaker]

Obviously it wasn't a big deal for Virgin as I have heard nothing back. It is understandable as I am only a drop in the ocean, but just in our little office of 11 we have 4x Platinum, 4xGold,2xSilver(1 soon to be Gold) 1xRed. I haven't even thought about our interstate offices and when our employees come in from Macau, Vegas, Singapore etc.....

Maybe it is time to speak to Qantas about Status matching and give them a try and see how it pans out.

Regards

 

[eastwest101]

Obviously it wasn't a big deal for Virgin as I have heard nothing back. It is understandable as I am only a drop in the ocean, but just in our little office of 11 we have 4x Platinum, 4xGold,2xSilver(1 soon to be Gold) 1xRed. I haven't even thought about our interstate offices and when our employees come in from Macau, Vegas, Singapore etc.....

Maybe it is time to speak to Qantas about Status matching and give them a try and see how it pans out.

Did you send a private message with your booking ref to the Velocity Frequent Flyer company rep as they asked in post #19?

If you only have 5 posts you may not be able to send or receive private messages, so maybe contact one of the moderation team whom can forward your details onto the Velocity Frequent Flyer rep.

If you have already been in touch with them maybe a reminder message may prompt them to ask about what/if any solutions may be around. I guess company reps like this don't usually solve the particular problem but refer them to someone in VA whom does fix these sort of things, maybe they are busy/or forgot about you for the moment...

 

[Velocity Frequent Flyer]

Hi Steve

Apologies for my delay in response which took longer than I'd have liked. Our Ground Operations colleagues have looked into this and have confirmed that the standard operating procedures were followed.

According to our records, your flight was called in the lounge at 6.06pm and 6.12pm. The offload process commences at 10 minutes before departure when boarding ceases, and our system shows that you and your travelling companion were removed from the flight well within this timeframe.

I can assure you that that every effort had been made by Virgin Australia team members at Melbourne Airport to provide you with an optimal opportunity to board your flight in good time. A decision as impactful as offloading our guests is not made lightly, and such an action is only taken to ensure that flights depart on schedule for the convenience of all guests.

 

[obsgyn]

Virgin runs such a tight turn around. I remember one one flight, we were paged to go to the boarding gate when the aircraft had not even arrived at the gate. I have also heard many calls for passengers to make their way to the gate as the flight was closed. there seems to be no uniformity in boarding rules.

 

[JohnCarrWestwood]

Call me paranoid but after shopping is done ( I rarely do this,) last minute Pee stop ( more frequently than Id like) I head for the gate EARLY. I dont rely on other folk to tell me where I should be and at what time.
I am there.
$120 seems steep, Id agree.