Virgin Australia Business Class - Meals, Menus & Service

[pwae]

Here is the meals on some of the flights I did last weekend.

28/June VA630 - SYD -> CBR
J Load: 1/6
Arrival: Water and OJ
Choices: Savoury french toast with sausage, eggs and bacon or (i think) Yoghurt with Muesli. (I had the first)
Rating: 6/10, nothing to write home about. okay, but not great.


In the lounge at Canberra (4 hour stop over), had pancakes and lunch. The pita bread with Falafel. Quite nice, and it's not hot dogs!



28/June VA1217 - CBR -> BNE
J Load: 7/8
Arrival: Mocktail and water (Finally, the mocktail!)
Choices: Malayasian chicken curry with cous cous or chickpea salad. (I had the first again)
Rating: 8/10, not bad for a curry.
Additional: Mocktails were constantly refilled on this flight! As well as offering extra bread. The supervisor Brad on this flight was excellent (todo, submit feedback).



28/June VA342 - BNE -> MEL
J Load: Full (8/8 i think this is for a 737?)
Arrival: Mocktail or water
Choices: The beef pie or the chickpea salad (they only had 4 of each, so i had to go with the chickpea salad)
Rating; 9/10 - This dish is actually delicious and made me feel not too bad about missing out on the pie
Additional: Flight had IFE, and there was no pre warning emails from Virgin about it having it.. which meant I could not make use of it, a bit annoying.




more to come...

 

[pwae]

28/June VA697 - MEL -> PER
J Load: 3/24 from memory. (flying VH-XFD)
Arrival: Water, OJ or Champange (i got apple juice)
Choices: (see the coast to coast menu posted a few pages ago). I got the Duck entree, Beef main, and java chocolate cake
Rating: Duck 9/10, Beef 6/10, Cake 6/10

 

[pwae]

30/June VA564 - PER -> SYD
J Load: 4/24 from memory. (flying VH-XFA :-( )
Arrival: Water, OJ or Champange (i got apple juice again)
Choices: (see the coast to coast menu posted a few pages ago). I got the Prawn entree, Duck main, and crumble for dessert.
Rating: Duck 7/10, Beef 8/10, Cake 7/10
Other notes: Flying XFA, and the 'map' wouldn't even work, it was complained about the cd not being loaded, guess someone forgot. No offer of galaxy tabs at all, and my seat (1K) and seat next to me, the seat didnt work properly. (the leg rest wouldn't raise). VA really needs to overhaul these planes.

 

[MarkD]

Must say, I had the best J service EVER, on one of the shortest flights.
Flew VA 252 Sat 6/7/13.
Was offered the usual preflight drinks, greeted by name, offered paper, order taken before takeoff for Breakfast. I just took the oats, as I dont usually eat breakfast. The CS Kim, was absolutely spot on with his service. perfect service. On landing he came to me, again, speaking to me by name, reminded me as a platinum, I had access to the lounge on arrival. He really has set the benchmark for all crew to folow. He was damn good
Flew VA319 same day, same polished service, although not as great as Kim, the CS (Hope was her name) was very professional, and I could not fault anything at all about the flight. Again, she mentioned my Platinum status, and personally thanked me for flying with them.
Also as a side note, 8 flights this week, and 5 of those in J, every flight has been spot on time, or early arrival.
Whoever has given the VA staff a motivational speech and retrainning, I need your number. If you can make my staff so polished and professional I want you lol

 

[Flywithd]

Must say, I had the best J service EVER, on one of the shortest flights.
Flew VA 252 Sat 6/7/13.
Was offered the usual preflight drinks, greeted by name, offered paper, order taken before takeoff for Breakfast. I just took the oats, as I dont usually eat breakfast. The CS Kim, was absolutely spot on with his service. perfect service. On landing he came to me, again, speaking to me by name, reminded me as a platinum, I had access to the lounge on arrival. He really has set the benchmark for all crew to folow. He was damn good
Flew VA319 same day, same polished service, although not as great as Kim, the CS (Hope was her name) was very professional, and I could not fault anything at all about the flight. Again, she mentioned my Platinum status, and personally thanked me for flying with them.
Also as a side note, 8 flights this week, and 5 of those in J, every flight has been spot on time, or early arrival.
Whoever has given the VA staff a motivational speech and retrainning, I need your number. If you can make my staff so polished and professional I want you lol

Hope, small petite Asian girl?

 

[ataline]

30/June VA564 - PER -> SYD
J Load: 4/24 from memory. (flying VH-XFA :-( )
Arrival: Water, OJ or Champange (i got apple juice again)
Choices: (see the coast to coast menu posted a few pages ago). I got the Prawn entree, Duck main, and crumble for dessert.
Rating: Duck 7/10, Beef 8/10, Cake 7/10
Other notes: Flying XFA, and the 'map' wouldn't even work, it was complained about the cd not being loaded, guess someone forgot. No offer of galaxy tabs at all, and my seat (1K) and seat next to me, the seat didnt work properly. (the leg rest wouldn't raise). VA really needs to overhaul these planes.

I agree - I flew MEL-PER on Thursday night and PER-MEL on Sat night - on the same plane there and back (Cottesloe Beach). TV screens in 2A and 2B (or is it C?) weren't working on the way to PER. On the way back the screens on 3A and B weren't working, tray table on 3A was broken and flight maps wasn't working.

Great service from the staff but let down by the plane itself. I was disappointed!

 

[MarkD]

Hope, small petite Asian girl?

Yep, thats her, very efficient, very friendly and very professional

 

[pwae]

I actually got an automated email from VA for feedback on this flight. I know what I'm going to give them...

 

[Flywithd]

Yep, thats her, very efficient, very friendly and very professional

She was very speedy on my last trip MEL SYD, offered lunch, delivered drinks and food in 10 minutes with 6/8 in J. She's gorgeous and fantastic personality!

 

[KCMil]

Must say, I had the best J service EVER, on one of the shortest flights.
Flew VA 252 Sat 6/7/13.
Was offered the usual preflight drinks, greeted by name, offered paper, order taken before takeoff for Breakfast. I just took the oats, as I dont usually eat breakfast. The CS Kim, was absolutely spot on with his service. perfect service. On landing he came to me, again, speaking to me by name, reminded me as a platinum, I had access to the lounge on arrival. He really has set the benchmark for all crew to folow. He was damn good
Flew VA319 same day, same polished service, although not as great as Kim, the CS (Hope was her name) was very professional, and I could not fault anything at all about the flight. Again, she mentioned my Platinum status, and personally thanked me for flying with them.
Also as a side note, 8 flights this week, and 5 of those in J, every flight has been spot on time, or early arrival.
Whoever has given the VA staff a motivational speech and retrainning, I need your number. If you can make my staff so polished and professional I want you lol

Def worth a mention to VA then!
Always nice when you get an unexpected suprise like that....nice to know that the standards are starting to pick up in consistancy as it was the biggest weakness.

 

[Howjac]

VA323 Mel-Bne 29th June with DH and 2 kiddos. 6/8 so pretty full. OJ or water on take off. CS Kirsty was amazing, heavy on the customer service to the old couple behind us who were very "needy". Found the man a cheese plate from somewhere??? Chatty and friendly and making the kids feel important. Snack choice of ham/cheese croissant or roasted onion tart. Tart was amazing, could have eaten 5. Kirsty was really good at getting stuff for the kids - tried the croissant, then egg sandwich and pringles from main cart. She also made the best cup of tea but lost points on getting hubby another cup and not automatically realising that meant I wanted one too

sorry no pics - DH thinks I'm a plane geek as it is, this would just have confirmed it.

 

[Mak404matt]

Hi Guys!

Does anyone have the current Coast2Coast A330 menu?

 

[pblackie]

Hi, It's the one on the website http://www.virginaustralia.com/cs/g...ocuments/webcontent/~edisp/food_menu_a330.pdf It hasn't changed in a little while and the Beef is getting boring. Also be aware that if you are unfortunate enough to do Coast to Coast on a 737 as I was last night they will only have a portion of the menu available and the dessert on offer was a chocolate sundae type thing in a plastic pot.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

the dessert on offer was a chocolate sundae type thing in a plastic pot.

A Bill and Ben sundae.........very classy!

 

[moa999]

Some more eastbound coast-coast shots of the daytime meals.

King prawns, duck ragu, apple crumble.



On the negative side. Old plane and the worst one XFBroken. 2 business seats out of order, another 2 (Inc mine) with ife not working.
J was full (ignoring the 2 broken seats on the 4pm service)...
I was on a Flexi upgraded using the Comp Upgrades. Shifted forward three days out to the midnight flight, then again at airport to 4pm flight..

And overheard an announcement to the Y cabin that some ife screens not working so feel free to move.

 

[DGW]

Some more eastbound coast-coast shots of the daytime meals.

King prawns, duck ragu, apple crumble.

I'm looking forward to a menu change. I had the trout rather than the duck on the way home on Thursday night but I've had these same dishes several times in the last few weeks.

It was a full house in J on my flight also, the first time I've ever seen it so full.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Flew SYD-MEL on Thurs and MEL-SYD yesterday.
Both flights were vastly different in customer service terms.
SYD-MEL 7 pax, I sat in 2A. This was a fly ahead flight for me on a paid J fare.
No PDB, no newspapers offered. My jacket wasn't taken from me to hang up until the meal service ( it was sitting pretty obviously on my lap). No Galaxy tabs offered. Found a dirty dinner fork in my seat pocket.
Curtain closed to front galley for most of the flight.
The CSM started service at row 1 and then went back to the galley to retrieve the manifest. Looked like she was trying to decide which pax in row 2 should be served first. Fortunately it was me. Myself and my seat buddy got the last two cheese plates (alternative was the trout salad) pax in 2F a bit unhappy and ended up with cheese and crackers from the Y menu.
Cheese Plate

Think the wine was a Pinot, it was drinkable. Ice cream was yum.
MEL-SYD 7 pax, I sat in 1F with a lovely shadow.
Very jovial and excellent CSM whose name escapes me (middle-aged with an English maybe Yorkshire accent).
Offered mocktail or water, newspapers and jacket hung up.
IFE and food orders taken together very quickly post take-off.
Choice of cheese and eggplant panini or chicken salad. I chose the panini, quite tasty but a little on the greasy side.

Wine was a Cab blend of sorts and was drinkable.

In summary both flights were fine, on time departure, got my choice of snack and landed safely.
The customer service was vastly superior on the second flight and what I would expect a J passenger to receive on every flight.
Consistently inconsistent

 

[bass_ke]

1D and 1F on Mel - Syd this morn. Marita was the CSM. We got the pumpkin and feta salad with the orange cake dessert, not bad! Didn't get a pic til half devoured though. Marita looked after the full cabin well!

I like the Embraer J cabin

 

[serfty]

Flew SYD-MEL on Thurs and MEL-SYD yesterday.
Both flights were vastly different in customer service terms.
...

I would be contacting CS complimenting the service on the second flight and panning that for the first. Being specific with relevant details would help.

 

[pblackie]

Recently had 2 very poor J experiences, I wrote to CS outlining the issues and got a generic thank you for providing feedback response - don't honestly believe they care. One of the flights was on XFB so I guess they have just given up on complaints and are glad to have got someone's fare for a substandard product.