Virgin Australia Business Class - Meals, Menus & Service

[twinaisle]

Lovely to hear other CM's are doing their inconsistent thing again. Wonderful.

 

[kevrosmith]

Lovely to hear other CM's are doing their inconsistent thing again. Wonderful.

If it’s good for the customer experience, is it a bad thing?

Some of the best companies in the world thrive on allowing individual employee innovation. I’ve heard that 3M historically allowed employees to work on projects to demonstrate new ideas/products. If the project is a success, the product gets adopted. (Or something like that…)

Some of the “inconsistencies” being described, sound like a good approach, from my customer perspective.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

If it’s good for the customer experience, is it a bad thing?

Some of the best companies in the world thrive on allowing individual employee innovation. I’ve heard that 3M historically allowed employees to work on projects to demonstrate new ideas/products. If the project is a success, the product gets adopted. (Or something like that…)

Some of the “inconsistencies” being described, sound like a good approach, from my customer perspective.

The operative word being ‘if’.

Most of the time initiatives are great and enhance the experience. I don’t think this sets unrealistic expectations for later flights… pax are able to ascertain when a particular CM is going ‘above and beyond’. You don’t except the next CM to mirror that.

There have been some instances where the complete opposite happens… in that’s case, not good. But again i don’t think pax expect that will carry over to their next flight!

 

[flyingfan]

Lovely to hear other CM's are doing their inconsistent thing again. Wonderful.

Do you get pax whinging outright "But on my last flight I got xyz" frequently?

My guess is there are money, training and other reasons why 1) service delivery is impossible to get 100% identical and consistent across thousands of staff and 2) not everything pax considers 'nice' or positive should be rolled out everywhere for everyone.

I wonder if eg. SQ J/F is always consistent, nothing more nothing less, while VA here is more consistent inconsistent. I wish I flew more to judge

If I get a little something extra or nice-different on VA J, I don't expect it again or all the time. But when some do and get cranky when it's not delivered again, it ruins it for the over-and-above FA as well as the pax who received it.

EDIT: meant to write inconsistent

 

[twinaisle]

Do you get pax whinging outright "But on my last flight I got xyz" frequently?

My guess is there are money, training and other reasons why 1) service delivery is impossible to get 100% identical and consistent across thousands of staff and 2) not everything pax considers 'nice' or positive should be rolled out everywhere for everyone.

I wonder if eg. SQ J/F is always consistent, nothing more nothing less, while VA here is more consistent. I wish I flew more to judge

If I get a little something extra or nice-different on VA J, I don't expect it again or all the time. But when some do and get cranky when it's not delivered again, it ruins it for the over-and-above FA as well as the pax who received it.

It's a 50/50 with "on my last flight" but you can see where the conversation will lead to when that line is involved.

Consistency about 90% or near identical should offer a streamlined service to guests. It's harder when you have example A where someone is coming out with the meals and showing them to passengers to make their selection.

SQ have a lot more to offer so they can do cartwheels and offer A to Z of needed where we have little room for movement so it's much harder.

 

[fletty]

In my experience across 26 J sectors this year pretty evenly split between QF and VA, I've found QF to be far more consistent in how meal selection and the general formalities are delivered. VA has been 50:50 between seat position and status for ordering, with the presenting thing an outlier.

I don't mind either way - I probably think by status is more fair but could also appear more confusing. I do prefer it to be consistent though and at least on QF I know what to expect.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

In my experience across 26 J sectors this year pretty evenly split between QF and VA, I've found QF to be far more consistent in how meal selection and the general formalities are delivered. VA has been 50:50 between seat position and status for ordering, with the presenting thing an outlier.

I don't mind either way - I probably think by status is more fair but could also appear more confusing. I do prefer it to be consistent though and at least on QF I know what to expect.

And then you have… the CM on one of my flights who circled the only two platinums in the cabin on his passenger matrix, but then performed an elaborate dance to take orders from everyone else first, with the platinums last!

Orders were taken 1DF, 2AC, 2F, 1C, then me in 2D, followed by the other platinum in 1A!

 

[fletty]

And then you have… the CM on one of my flights who circled the only two platinums in the cabin on his passenger matrix, but then performed an elaborate dance to take orders from everyone else first, with the platinums last!

Orders were taken 1DF, 2AC, 2F, 1C, then me in 2D, followed by the other platinum in 1A!

You would think being WP in 1A you'd be near guaranteed to be served first

 

[AIRwin]

And then you have… the CM on one of my flights who circled the only two platinums in the cabin on his passenger matrix, but then performed an elaborate dance to take orders from everyone else first, with the platinums last!

Orders were taken 1DF, 2AC, 2F, 1C, then me in 2D, followed by the other platinum in 1A!

Did you miss out on your first choice?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Did you miss out on your first choice?

Yes!

 

[markis10]

And then you have… the CM on one of my flights who circled the only two platinums in the cabin on his passenger matrix, but then performed an elaborate dance to take orders from everyone else first, with the platinums last!

Orders were taken 1DF, 2AC, 2F, 1C, then me in 2D, followed by the other platinum in 1A!

Your overlooking the other metric, fare basis, ie Full J vs paid upgrade vs free upgrade

 

[twinaisle]

Your overlooking the other metric, fare basis, ie Full J vs paid upgrade vs free upgrade

Correct. FCNA/upgrades within 3 hours of the flight regardless of platinum or vip orders won't be taken first.

Some will also go by fare status and take an order of someone who's paid vs upgraded/redemption. I can see both sides to this.

 

[fletty]

I always wondered if fare basis was taken into account - makes total sense that a full J or really any cash fare should trump an upgrade.

 

[twinaisle]

I always wondered if fare basis was taken into account - makes total sense that a full J or really any cash fare should trump an upgrade.

Some will and some won't. It would just depend on the person!

 

[BRIS_VA_HAWK]

Some will and some won't. It would just depend on the person!

And the SOP would be...???

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Your overlooking the other metric, fare basis, ie Full J vs paid upgrade vs free upgrade

I was full fare, business, on the originally booked flight. No upgrades or ‘catering not guaranteed’.


The CM was probably thinking that non-platinums deserved to get first crack at the meal choice for once. Or something. I’m sure it was appreciated by those pax.

 

[twinaisle]

And the SOP would be...???

It's so inconsistent there's no point posting

 

[BRIS_VA_HAWK]

It's so inconsistent there's no point posting

Fair enough. For a while there I thought it had gone back to 1AC-1DF-2AC-2DF, however

Having said that, Mrs Hawk and I are doing BNE-SYD tomorrow in J, so let's see how it goes.

 

[kevrosmith]

I always choose 1A & 1C on the basis that I think, as two Platinums, there’s a higher chance we will be served first, and fairly sure it’s happened that way. Sometimes I’d prefer to choose row 2 so not to be at the bulkhead, but don’t want to risk the roulette of whether our status on fare paying Business will trump others in row 1.

 

[kevrosmith]

CNS-BNE on Saturday 21st. Chicken something. Tasted nice though the rice was a bit dry and wasn’t quite enough of the yoghurt to add to the moisture of the dish overall. But it was pleasant enough.

Other option was veggie pasta something with optional chicken. The two ppl in 2A&C who ordered this were served this first, though suspect it was more that the dish i ordered took longer to heat up.

Orders taken in order row 1 AC, DF and then row 2.

Cabin manager brought out some chocolates and sweet things a bit later when I asked if there was anything chocolate or sweet available.