workalotdave

Hello,

I am currently sitting in a hotel room waiting for alternative travel plans and wanted to share my experiences after my VAustralia flight was cancelled. This post should be taken by all business travelers and leisure travelers as a warning if you have tight schedules.

I should point out the VAustralia inflight service is satisfactory. This post is specifically about cancellations and VAustralia's customer service, business process's or lack thereof.

Arrive at airport at 8pm on Fri Oct 15th for a flight scheduled to depart at 11:55pm LAX to BNE. Checkin fairly quick as I am Velocity Silver member. Standard queue looks about 30 minutes. Move onto security screening, and line up in a queue for over an hour (very long in my opinion). Finally pass security screening and get down to the gate in Terminal 3. Very noisy, few services and generally an unappealing environment. Really has the feel of a very discount carrier. So I move as far away as possible while still being in the terminal and find a power point for my laptop and do some work.

At 11pm I move back towards the gate. Boarding has not started yet but there is a big queue. I note that there are no monitors with details of any departing flights. I ask someone in the queue if this is the BNE flight and they tell me the flight has been cancelled. I look for a VAustralia staff member but there are none, anywhere to be seen. I walk up and down the terminal for a few minutes and finally find a staff member that confirms the flight has been cancelled. OK. I have had this happen in the past. I think, looks like another night in LA, unplanned and unwanted, but, it happens so I take it on the chin. I am advised to go the checkin counter for further instructions.

At the checkin counter I get a letter with contact numbers and the name of a hotel. I am told to call the number in the morning for further instructions. I pickup my bag from a carousel and think this is going well and will be dealt with shortly. I stand in a line for the hotel shuttle bus, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes... mmmmmhhh. A few frequent travelers discuss and think something is not right. We call the hotel to be advised they did not know anything about it and will send a bus straight away. Ok. Bus arrives 10 minutes later. Queue at the hotel for 30 minutes to check in, there are about 100-150 of us. It's now close to 2am.

The next morning I call the number, first time on hold for 2 hours. Second time 4 hours and 23 minutes. Third time, just under two hours to talk with someone. They have no information and are unable to assist. Apparently someone will be in the hotel tonight. I am starting to worry about this now.

A person is indeed in the hotel that night. They organise to get me out on a flight on Monday 18th night. That is 3 days after the original flight! Not good, so I protest but get nowhere. Talking with other guests some are being delayed by up to 8 days! Yes, EIGHT.

My flight on Monday night is with V Australia. Most others are being put onto Qantas, Air Pacific, Hawaiian and Air New Zealand with terrible layovers and routing all over the pacific area to get back to BNE.

I am again very worried, because my plane on Monday night is very likely to be the same one that didn't go on Friday night. Relating to the fault, rumor has it, when leaving a hanger they hit/broke/clipped the wing. I put my chances on getting out on Monday night at 50% currently. VAustralia assure me, the flight will go ahead -ask more questions and there assurance falls apart as they have no formal advise, it just hasn't been cancelled yet.

So, moral of the story - VAustralia do indeed provide full service inflight experience that is not spectactular, but it is satisfactory. However they only have 4 planes! Something goes wrong and they are unable to re-route or fix the problem. Additionally, they have little to no customer service experience or scale to effectively deal with a situation such as this. Similar experiences on other carriers has been annoying, but fixed reasonably quickly.

If you are a business traveler or have to be somewhere on a fixed schedule, then do all you can to avoid VAustralia. Friendly and great marketing, but lack the substance to provide a proper service.

Definitely a lesson learned for me. I will post what happens from here! Wish me luck!

Thanks,
David.

P.S. I am going home for a wedding as best man, which is now in doubt - sorry VAustralia, but never again!


UPDATE
I have given up on V Australia and booked on a Qantas flight myself. V Australia are giving me a refund for the leg home. Some people still have not been contacted or they have not been able to get through. Others have flights but are on standby. Amazing!

Far Siren

Welcome to Flyertalk and sorry to hear about your ordeal! Not sure if this post is appropriate for the Trip Reports forum though.

restlessinRNO

workalotdave - Welcome to FlyerTalk. I'm sorry your first post is due to your VAustralia cancellation. In my opinion, irregular operations defines the "greatness" of an airline, and it seems VAustralia falls short.

tom911

Amazing. I wonder if capacity on other carriers to Australia the next few days is just not there. I know there was one report on the UA forum this week of a flight being oversold and passengers being bumped. Maybe that's why they're routing folks all over the place (just no capacity on competitors).

Looking at both the Qantas and UA flights LAX-SYD tonight there is a total of 2 business class seats available for sale, and only 1 for sale LAX-BNE on Qantas. UA's SFO-SYD has 3 business class seats for sale.

BNE777

I had the misfortune to fly V Australia on that routing and must say I will only use Air NZ now. The lack of lounge facilities at BNE and lack of shower facilities in the Alaskan lounge makes the J class product decidedly sour. I found the service standards ranging from low to chaotic.

I'm sorry to hear that you had an ordeal. Any airline can suffer cancellations, it's how you deal with the problem that counts and your tale is quite a disgrace.

V-Australia is, to my mind, a let down to the Virgin brand. I frequently use VS SYD to LHR and enjoy the experience, but VA need to pick their game up. I sincerely hope they do.

JHIN

While this wont sooth your issue or impression of VAustralia apparently this was an incident caused by the ground handlers of the plane by the ground crew from Mezza not directly VAustralia staff. Regardless your point is well made.

Omegaman888

I was on the same cancelled V Australia flight. It took me just over 4 hours to get through to someone on the call centre number they told us to call. They told me they had me rebooked and confirmed me on an Air New Zealand flight on Sunday 17th via AKL and SYD to BNE.

So, I go to the Air New Zealand counter to check in and they have no record of me! They say, oh I might be on standby, but the flight is full anyway. So much for being confirmed on the flight . So I go over to the V Australia counter and they claim that on their system we are showed as being confirmed on the ANZ flight - but that actually we must have just been on standby and ANZ used the seats.

Now they say I am on their Monday night direct flight LA-BNE. I was just on the hotel shuttle bus and there were some people on the bus who said V Australia cancelled their LA-SYD flight! Does that mean they don't have the aircraft back in service? No idea what that means for tomorrows LA-BNE flight?

Cancelling a flight is one thing - but I think the way they have dealt with it is atrocious. They obviously did not prepare their call centre for the expected increased call volume. Worse though is their attempt to cover up the cancellations from getting to the media by not posting any updates about the situation on their website as a way to communicate with stranded passengers. They might think it is cheaper to not charter a replacement aircraft, but when you inconvenience and upset numerous passengers by stranding them for multiple days and/or routing them in roundabout ways its got to be bad for business.

While I was on call holding to V Australia I called Virgin Atlantic to ask them to contact V Australia to get them to get their act together. The call centre supervisor wouldn't make any effort. He didn't seem to understand that they are damaging the whole Virgin Brand! They do now have a round the world ticket with Virgin Atlantic and V Australia - I actually have one that I have only partly used, I guess I should call them up again and ask them if they can replace the V Australia leg with a Qantas flight . That might make them rethink their "they have nothing to do with us" attitude.

tom911

Looks like tonight's UA LAX-SYD ended up with a weight restriction and they needed 30 volunteers to get off.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/14963823-post493.html

milan luka

Oh my Lord what a terrible situation you guys have found yourselves in.

While its unlikely I would have ever flown VAustralia this thread has clinched it for me. Terribly organized!

dizrythmia

there's no room for common sense in this thread!

ozziegumby

Channel 7 news here in Brisbane covered this in their 6pm bulletin tonight. Wasn't good publicity for V Australia with many describing their frustration at the lack of communication and long hold times. Told the viewers that 'business and premium' passengers had been put on alternative flights with the rest leaving tonight (plane now fixed from wing strike)

Hope you guys get back ok.

mandaqld

I one was the one who contact the media and brought them to our hotel. I cant believe they didnt already know about it and am so glad that i did it. I feel so sick and cant eat due to the fact that V Australia have just left us here, stranded. I will never fly with them again. I wont even use virgin within Australia. We are currently sitting at LAX for a LA - San Fran flight. We were supposed to be booked on at 1.15 but apparently we werent and are now on the 3.40pm flight. I dont hold much hope for being booked on the San Fran - Sydney flight later tonight.

I just want to go home

Sudsi

Although it is easy to see your frustration, it is certainly not the fault of V Australia. Menzies, their ground handler had a driver who couldn't drive and decided that the tip of the wing looked MUCH better attached to the hanger wall... I was stranded to and I have to tell you that I was well looked after by V Australia who gave me vouchers and paid for my hotel bill, you can't hope for better than that when it wasn't even their fault.

Omegaman888

Whether its their fault or not is not really the issue here. Obviously V Australia won't be happy that it happened and may pursue Menzies in terms of the liability from the incident, but the reality is that incidents like this do happen (and apparently a similar incident happened last year). Its how they respond to an incident like this in terms of managing their patrons expectations that is at issue. The absolute LEAST they can do is take care of accommodation and meals for inconvenienced passengers. More at issue is how they go about getting inconvenienced passengers to where they want to go with the least amount of further inconvenience. If this was Qantas or another major airline I would probably be at my destination within a day at most.

Instead I'm still in LAX, and am supposed to go on tonights LAX-BNE flight. This was after being told I was "confirmed" on last nights Air NZ flight via AUK and SYD when I was not.

Unlike yourself, not everyone wants to spend a few unplanned days at an airport hotel in LA even if it is paid for. Have you reached your destination yet, or are you still in LA?

Omegaman888

[Quote of and response to now-deleted post deleted by the moderator]

I found this thread before because I did a google search trying to find some information after V Australia did such a bad job of communicating with us (nothing on its website, nothing in the media and huge hold times to its call centre). I presume other frustrated passengers found it from a similar google search. I have found it useful to hear the experiences of other frustrated passengers.

While other one-time posters may not have been aware of this forum before, I have browsed it in the past. I have not posted before because of the need to register and even though I do travel quite a bit between the UK, US and Australia, judging by the status of some of the members here I don't travel that much

It does seem a useful forum for frequent flyers and registering may encourage me to be more active here.