henrus
Established Member
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- Jun 23, 2016
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I'm going to share what happened and am mainly interested to see if something like this has happened to others flying Virgin Australia.
The flight should have left Christchurch this morning at 6:50am but instead left a 4:30pm due to an "Engineering issue" which I think happened to be a battery problem.
So it all started at around 4:50am (NZ Time) when I arrived at the Virgin Australia check in area. In Christchurch they use Air NZ who do all the ground handling for Virgin including check-in and today was no exception with two separate queues for the Brisbane and the Sydney flights. The flight board then flashes up with hour delay until 3:30pm and simply said "Engineering issue".
The Sydney flight check in was closing and so that line was empty but they were still running around asking people if they were going to Sydney (despite it being less then the 90 minute check in Virgin impose on Trans Tasman flights. Having something to be at in Brisbane by 11am the other person I was traveling with asked if we could go via Sydney to which the person responded with is it an "Air New Zealand or a Virgin Ticket?" Standing next to my colleague (and my self having booked the tickets) I piped up an said we were booked on Air New Zealand tickets but booked separately to which I received the rude response of "Shut Up, I'm dealing with this person, one at a time". She then asked for a copy of the tickets and when we showed her the phone with the booking number said it was all to hard and walked off.
The line did not move for another 30 minutes until they printed out two lists of all passengers traveling on the flights and began calling up people one by one to highlight their name and simply ask if they were staying at the airport or leaving. Everyone was also told to arrive back at the airport at 1:30pm for check in as they decided not to issue boarding passes and check bags until after that time. They explained that a "part" needed to be flown in from Brisbane and it was on the Qantas flight arriving at ~2:10pm. So we left had a nice day in Christchurch and returned to the airport in time for check in.
Upon arrival back at Check in there were three flights going to Brisbane. The Qantas one, our delayed Virgin flight and an Air New Zealand flight upon which throughout the day they had switched people to but only if they were booked on a Air New Zealand ticket. We left and upon checking the Virgin website found that for delays over 2 hours (and ours was) that they would provide vouchers. We went back down to check in to ask and they said they'd look into it and around 5 minutes later appeared with NZ$40 vouchers between the two of us.
We went through security and another hour delay was posted upon which a promise was made of a 4pm boarding time and surprisingly this was stuck to as they made the first call for boarding at this time and the first 'sorry' for the delay speech they made all day (this should have been done at 6am not hours later at 4pm).
Onboard the crew were lovely and explained they were short staffed so the crew were actually called in on their day off to operate this flight. As quite a few had moved flights or days the plane was only half full and that reflected in the great service and even though we had already got a NZ$20 voucher it would have been nice to at least hand out a free drink (even non-alcoholic) once onboard.
Whilst I don't think Virgin could have done a lot more I think that they should have provided people with options. Now I know the EU is a bit different but on an Air France flight which was delayed by 1 hour they at least gave everyone a bottle of water.
I know I shouldn’t complain to much as there were lots of people with missed connections to domestic Australian flights who now have to spend the night in Brisbane and I understand stuff like this happens but the way they handled it and the fact you actually had to ask for vouchers is something that should be streamlined and staff should get a touch more training on.
The flight should have left Christchurch this morning at 6:50am but instead left a 4:30pm due to an "Engineering issue" which I think happened to be a battery problem.
So it all started at around 4:50am (NZ Time) when I arrived at the Virgin Australia check in area. In Christchurch they use Air NZ who do all the ground handling for Virgin including check-in and today was no exception with two separate queues for the Brisbane and the Sydney flights. The flight board then flashes up with hour delay until 3:30pm and simply said "Engineering issue".
The Sydney flight check in was closing and so that line was empty but they were still running around asking people if they were going to Sydney (despite it being less then the 90 minute check in Virgin impose on Trans Tasman flights. Having something to be at in Brisbane by 11am the other person I was traveling with asked if we could go via Sydney to which the person responded with is it an "Air New Zealand or a Virgin Ticket?" Standing next to my colleague (and my self having booked the tickets) I piped up an said we were booked on Air New Zealand tickets but booked separately to which I received the rude response of "Shut Up, I'm dealing with this person, one at a time". She then asked for a copy of the tickets and when we showed her the phone with the booking number said it was all to hard and walked off.
The line did not move for another 30 minutes until they printed out two lists of all passengers traveling on the flights and began calling up people one by one to highlight their name and simply ask if they were staying at the airport or leaving. Everyone was also told to arrive back at the airport at 1:30pm for check in as they decided not to issue boarding passes and check bags until after that time. They explained that a "part" needed to be flown in from Brisbane and it was on the Qantas flight arriving at ~2:10pm. So we left had a nice day in Christchurch and returned to the airport in time for check in.
Upon arrival back at Check in there were three flights going to Brisbane. The Qantas one, our delayed Virgin flight and an Air New Zealand flight upon which throughout the day they had switched people to but only if they were booked on a Air New Zealand ticket. We left and upon checking the Virgin website found that for delays over 2 hours (and ours was) that they would provide vouchers. We went back down to check in to ask and they said they'd look into it and around 5 minutes later appeared with NZ$40 vouchers between the two of us.
We went through security and another hour delay was posted upon which a promise was made of a 4pm boarding time and surprisingly this was stuck to as they made the first call for boarding at this time and the first 'sorry' for the delay speech they made all day (this should have been done at 6am not hours later at 4pm).
Onboard the crew were lovely and explained they were short staffed so the crew were actually called in on their day off to operate this flight. As quite a few had moved flights or days the plane was only half full and that reflected in the great service and even though we had already got a NZ$20 voucher it would have been nice to at least hand out a free drink (even non-alcoholic) once onboard.
Whilst I don't think Virgin could have done a lot more I think that they should have provided people with options. Now I know the EU is a bit different but on an Air France flight which was delayed by 1 hour they at least gave everyone a bottle of water.
I know I shouldn’t complain to much as there were lots of people with missed connections to domestic Australian flights who now have to spend the night in Brisbane and I understand stuff like this happens but the way they handled it and the fact you actually had to ask for vouchers is something that should be streamlined and staff should get a touch more training on.
