VA COVID Service

[Freqy Flyer]

What’s the VA onboard service looking like currently in light of COVID? Would really like to know what is happening with:
1. Food and Beverages
2. Inflight Entertainment
3. Onboard Wifi

I’m about to book a few flights and so any experiences/comments/observations would be really appreciated

 

[Bolthead]

1. Normal snacks and water in 'Y' - Although water is in plastic glass not sealed container. 'J' service not sure but did notice snacks and alcohol served. No purchased food or beverages available.
2. Inflight Ent. is normal
3. Onboard wifi I think is still available but never used it so not sure....(although on one flight they said it was not working - no mention about it on other flights)

 

[Milefest]

Flew with them yesterday. Snacks are still provided. Beverages are only water unless you fly during happy hour at which they were serving a limited selection of alcohol. Nothing was available for purchase.
Wifi for entertainment is running. Internet wasn't available on both of my flights.

 

[Nathant123]

Flew yesterday SYD - BNE and as others mentioned water and granola bar. I believe alcohol was available for purchase as I saw a couple with great northern cans. Believe inflight entertainment and wifi was functioning as normal but never bothered to test it.

 

[blankman]

As others have said in economy it's water poured into a cup. FA's serving drinks have not worn masks both times I've flown.

Although a small risk- I'm a little uncomfortable that VA would risk infecting so many passengers in the off chance the FA serving the water were infected themselves.. Surely a sealed bottle of water isn't too much to ask?

Qantas has safety kits at the gate and also provide on board if requested. Virgin has nothing at the gate and simply announce on board that they're available upon request.

 

[Mattg]

I flew VA J last night and the only catering available was granola bars, water and soft drinks (coke or sprite), as others have said. No alcohol or even sparkling water available.

In-flight entertainment was working, wifi was not.

 

[serfty]

I flew VA J last night and the only catering available was granola bars, water and soft drinks (coke or sprite), as others have said. No alcohol or even sparkling water available.

In-flight entertainment was working, wifi was not.

What route?

 

[Harthagan]

Seems ridiculous that on the one hand they cut back on every cost they can, blaming covid precautionary measures as the reason and yet on the other hand go from serving sealed water to pouring into an open cup (presumably to save a few cents per pax)

Exactly what is their contrived covid justification for that cutback I wonder? If you ask me, they deserve to go under for such short sightedness.

 

[MarkD]

NIce.
They deserve to go under because of a bit of water?
They have normally always just poured the water into a cup from the 1.5L bottle, so don't see the change. If you don't like it, politely decline.

 

[Harthagan]

They have normally always just poured the water into a cup from the 1.5L bottle, so don't see the change.

That has not been my experience. Always received a sealed cup of water.

 

[oz_mark]

To some extent, they're probably just treading water, getting supplier contracts and things into place....

 

[Mattg]

What route?

CBR-BNE.

That has not been my experience. Always received a sealed cup of water.

Water was poured from a bottle into a plastic cup on yesterday’s flight.

 

[eric2011]

I flew VA J last night and the only catering available was granola bars, water and soft drinks (coke or sprite), as others have said. No alcohol or even sparkling water available.

In-flight entertainment was working, wifi was not.

Exactly the same for me BNE-TSV. At least the points and status credits came through with 1 hour

 

[Harthagan]

Water was poured from a bottle into a plastic cup on yesterday’s flight.

Yup, realise that's what is being done now.

 

[MarkD]

My usual flights were SYD-BNE, up to 4 x per week and only ever had water poured from bottle, except odd occasion would get a small bottle. ATR flights were always the plastic sealed container in the coffee cup, ie BNE-PQQ and SYD-CBR

 

[ja1]

To some extent, they're probably just treading water, getting supplier contracts and things into place....

Oh god.. can't they just serve the water straight from the bottle instead of treading it ? Or is that how they're making the wine to serve in business class now..

Wife flew a couple of weeks ago and said they got water and a snack. She was over it anyway - plane was packed (no spare seats) in both directions (SYD-BNE). Was booked to fly in a fortnight and the border has just shut so.. now to figure out how or what to do with the booking..

 

[Harthagan]

I just don't like the way they have handled things. Unlike Qantas they have taken even opportunity to screw their customers, blaming the pandemic for it every step of the way, when in reality it's their own commercial decisions based solely on profits!

From not refunding their customers, to freezing velocity points, to keeping there lounges closed, to cutting back service standards. It's a textbook case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The customers have been made to take the brunt of the hits. Instead of just honouring their contractual agreements with their customers for as long as they could, they instead decided to turn us into unsecured creditors at the first opportunity and then just hope for a government bailout.

Their only priority it seems throughout was to protect their over bloated stable of staff.

End rant/

 

[eastwest101]

I just don't like the way they have handled things. Unlike Qantas they have taken even opportunity to screw their customers, blaming the pandemic for it every step of the way, when in reality it's their own commercial decisions based solely on profits!

From not refunding their customers, to freezing velocity points, to keeping there lounges closed, to cutting back service standards. It's a textbook case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The customers have been made to take the brunt of the hits. Instead of just honouring their contractual agreements with their customers for as long as they could, they instead decided to turn us into unsecured creditors at the first opportunity and then just hope for a government bailout.

Their only priority it seems throughout was to protect their over bloated stable of staff.

End rant/

To be fair - an administration and sale process is a bit different from other things but other domestic airlines are just as guilty of similar things as Virgin Australia:

QF & JQ - cutbacks of inflight and ground services, Jetsarization of as many routes as possible, taking government assistance for a minimal network schedule while misrepresenting what assistance VA was asking from the Fed government, significant staff cuts and unloading their workforce onto Jobkeeper as well, delays of refunds to customers, price gouging when border restrictions change, filling aircraft to capacity (while lots of other available aircraft sit idle), lounge closures etc etc so pretty much all the same as VA except they didn't suspend their loyalty scheme, but their schedule is so thin its effectively an unusable loyalty scheme at the moment anyway.

Rex - holding a gun to the head of the Federal Government and threatening to close down unless government assistance is provided, but to their credit have since continued to operate on a reduced schedule with mandatory face masks, had already killed off its frequent flyer scheme many years ago.

 

[Ms_KH]

I flew business class last Friday (7th) CBR to OOL. Bottled water was handed out as pbd. Theoretically wine/soft drinks with some sort of small pre-packaged snack was offered, but despite ordering a drink I never received anything (the flight attendant spent an inordinate amount of time flirting with two men in row 1 and got them top ups of their wine before disappearing for the rest of the flight).

 

[Bugalugz]

Flew PER-KNX-PER on VARA.

Full selection of soft drinks and juices with water bottles handed out. Snack was soy crisps and still no BOB in WA.