Couldn't this whole thing have been avoided if VX had a disclaimer on their website that certain facilities are not available on all aircraft?
I agree that OP has gotten a raw deal, VX certainly has no legal obligation to do anything more than transport from A to B but the way it markets itself is as a premium service provider. If I pay for a suite at a hotel and the electricals don't work except for the room light should I be entitled to something? They have still given me the room I paid for.
Having said that I don't think the OP should be entitled to much more, I certainly think the difference between full Y and what he paid would be ample, and given his fare was only $199 shouldn't be much less, if at all less...
If we're voting, I choose option B. If you go with option A, and book around the dark plane, but then because another flight has a mech, it is brought into service on your flight, you'll be angry anyway. There's no way to satisfy everyone, but if it makes fewer trips by only being a sub, then that's my preference.
Exactly. And, were VX to schedule it, there are two options: notify people at booking, in which case, they're risking everyone scheduling around it, and then flying an empty plane or canceling the flight multiple times, in which case it becomes a spare anyways and that's one less flight per day while still having to spend the money as if the company were going to fly it (or flying it and really losing money)...or...notify people after booking, and having to deal with a bunch of angry passengers (who haven't yet had the opportunity to experience VX's check-in or boarding, or set foot on a plane which is impressive even without the IFE) who would then try to change to other flights or demand refunds and create even more of a nightmare. Much rather have it fly less as a spare. But...as stated, this becomes a moot point in a couple months.
Folks, I'd like to try and steer the thread for a moment. Say that this dark 319is an operational reality for the moment (obviously choice number one is to not fly it period!). Would you rather:
a. Have it fly a scheduled line, in which it would be scheduled to fly specific flights every day, and receive notification a couple of days in advance that you are scheduled to be on the dark 319
or
b. See it used a sub, where it would probably fly fewer flights but often on little notice, so that you would be informed about being on it no earlier than check in or at the gate.
I'd take option c: make sure my new product (which is the only reason people are even flying VX) is fully operational before launch. First impressions are important. Don't launch a schedule that you can't support with your complete product.
I'd take option c: make sure my new product (which is the only reason people are even flying VX) is fully operational before launch. First impressions are important. Don't launch a schedule that you can't support with your complete product.
I think it really hurts the brand...
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524 is a sub. It is, as SFO stated, not in regular service. Even if it's used on consecutive days, it's because another plane is out, or some sort of irregular operation has occurred (also from within VX).
Then my conclusion is VX must have very regularly had a plane out-of-service over the past three weeks. I saw 524 arrive or depart SAN with my own eyes over 10 consecutive days in mid-March (no I don't work for VX). I would also point out that the flight was usually right on schedule . And the flight in question was also showing as an A319 a week in advance in the booking engine. Once it switched over to A320 in the booking system, then guess what, no more dark plane coming to SAN. So, you can call it a spare if you want, but it has definitely been in service regularly.
Here's another thing---my understanding was that VX has three A319s in operational service (maybe there are four now). About a month ago, I was looking at booking a couple VX flights for the Easter weekend, and noticed the booking engine showed 2 A319s scheduled for morning JFK-SFO flights, and 1 A319 scheduled for SFO-LAX in the early morning, all on the same day (all three flights would be in the air at the same time). I know VX is not going to put a dark plane on a transcon, so that leaves one A319 left over...hmmmm...maybe I shouldn't book this early morning SFO-LAX flight if I don't want to fly on a dark airplane! And for the record, I did not book that early morning SFO-LAX flight...
But that's not what the passenger missed. They didn't miss out on the F experience, they missed out on the IFE experience (and maybe a massage function). They got the meal/snack, they got free cocktails, they got a dedicated FA, an oversized seat and more personal space, a dedicated lav. Those are the perks of being an F pax. If they get $50 back, they are getting a free one-way leg in the Main Cabin. Or they can apply that toward the cost of an F ticket.
Just yesterday I booked an F ticket where the price of Y was $129 and the price of F was $149. This for more than a week out, for SFO-LAX. The cheap seats were gone, but for $20 more - why not fly F? That $50 credit could go a long way depending on the flight it might be used for in the future.
I missed out on a functioning seat with non-manual recline, no massage, no power ports, and no IFE. Given that it was a late flight and I had zero interest in food or booze, the things I PURCHASED the seat for were unavailable.
Everyone has different reasons for flying up front, and those are often mine.
I DID miss out on the F experience as marketed by VX, and, no matter how you want to spin this (and tell folks what the OP missed or didn't miss), as the OP, nothing said has changed my view.
Couldn't this whole thing have been avoided if VX had a disclaimer on their website that certain facilities are not available on all aircraft?
I agree that OP has gotten a raw deal, VX certainly has no legal obligation to do anything more than transport from A to B but the way it markets itself is as a premium service provider. If I pay for a suite at a hotel and the electricals don't work except for the room light should I be entitled to something? They have still given me the room I paid for.
Having said that I don't think the OP should be entitled to much more, I certainly think the difference between full Y and what he paid would be ample, and given his fare was only $199 shouldn't be much less, if at all less...
At the time I booked, coach was $49. So, the differential (pre-tax) was $150.
The equity investors have injected another $100 mil into VX. I guess they won't be going the way of Frontier now, yet, but I still wouldn't hold your breath if oil keeps going up....
The equity investors have injected another $100 mil into VX. I guess they won't be going the way of Frontier now, yet, but I still wouldn't hold your breath if oil keeps going up....
If they can survive this round of bankruptcies, they should be ok (so long as oil remains stable here). Though, non of the bankruptcies so far represents competitive capacity that would go offline (they didn't go head to head w ATA, Frontier, Aloha, or Skybus with their route network). There should be a positive knockon effect to fares (up) as more capacity goes offline.
However, if oil continues its climb, and recessionary issues continue to pile up, we could see a nasty combination of higher CASM and lower RASM (fares may be up, but yields would go down) that would cause cash burn to accelerate. The investors are likely only willing to fund this business for so long, before they'd scale back to cut their losses.
The equity investors have injected another $100 mil into VX. I guess they won't be going the way of Frontier now, yet, but I still wouldn't hold your breath if oil keeps going up....
Good for VX. Lets hope this is enough until the economy starts picking up. Think 1/20/2009+100 days.
F9 only went into bankruptcy because their credit card processor tried to change their agreement to one that would cause F9 to die. Not because of bad biz practices, which were getting better under the new CEO. F9 is not like SX, AQ, or TZ, it has a chance. But that is another forum.
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Quote:
At the time I booked, coach was $49. So, the differential (pre-tax) was $150.
So let's assume that when you had gotten on the plane, they had handed a voucher to you for a value we'll call X (X being the amount of the voucher): $25 < X < $150... ignoring the call that you made later complaining about it that's obviously left a bad taste in your mouth.
What would have been a fair amount for X to have been- considering that some of the first class services were still on the plane for you to use, just not all of them? (Yes, I know, you didn't want food or wine. But it's not like you got told to go into coach, either. So I think it's fair for VX to not comp ALL the differential between F and Y on their dark plane- you got more than Y, just less than you expected to get in F.) Or, to put it another way.. what would have made you think "well, that kind of sucked, but they dealt with it well enough that I'd give them another chance", rather than upset enough that you called to complain and ended up with a WORSE experience?
To me, the fact that you ended up feeling worse about things after calling and expressing concern would be MY problem if I got this as a customer service escalation, having worked CS jobs before. That being said... there ARE some customers who you just can't make whole, who just want the moon if something goes wrong. Even if you have 99.9% customer satisfaction, that still means one person in a thousand isn't happy in the end... but there's no reason why that one person should be dealt with dismissively.
Last edited by eponymous_coward; Apr 14, 08 at 3:15 pm.
So let's assume that when you had gotten on the plane, they had handed a voucher to you for a value we'll call X (X being the amount of the voucher): $25 < X < $150... ignoring the call that you made later complaining about it that's obviously left a bad taste in your mouth.
What would have been a fair amount for X to have been- considering that some of the first class services were still on the plane for you to use, just not all of them? (Yes, I know, you didn't want food or wine. But it's not like you got told to go into coach, either. So I think it's fair for VX to not comp ALL the differential between F and Y on their dark plane- you got more than Y, just less than you expected to get in F.) Or, to put it another way.. what would have made you think "well, that kind of sucked, but they dealt with it well enough that I'd give them another chance", rather than upset enough that you called to complain and ended up with a WORSE experience?
To me, the fact that you ended up feeling worse about things after calling and expressing concern would be MY problem if I got this as a customer service escalation, having worked CS jobs before. That being said... there ARE some customers who you just can't make whole, who just want the moon if something goes wrong. Even if you have 99.9% customer satisfaction, that still means one person in a thousand isn't happy in the end... but there's no reason why that one person should be dealt with dismissively.
That's a fair question. They offered to double to $50, and I felt that, given their lack of sympathy to my issues, it was still fairly thin. I think, had they offered one of two things, when I'd gotten on board, I would have been satisfied:
A) $100 or more in vouchers
B) A free upgrade from coach to F that could have been booked in advance and without capacity constraints (obviously, assuming a seat was available for sale....)
It's sad. I was actually excited to try out VX!!!! My lifetime value to them would have been way more than the expense of making me happy on this. That tells me that their operations or marketing folks aren't thinking straight. I'm also guessing that their folks aren't directly reading this board. Given that there were two of us in F that night, and I believe I was the only to call and complain on that flight, they have enough information to figure out who I am.
I'm guessing Branson's folks don't read this either. If they do, I travel premium class TATL quite a bit. My lifetime value to Virgin Atlantic is likely way more than $100 in vouchers.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raindeer
That's a fair question. They offered to double to $50, and I felt that, given their lack of sympathy to my issues, it was still fairly thin. I think, had they offered one of two things, when I'd gotten on board, I would have been satisfied:
A) $100 or more in vouchers
B) A free upgrade from coach to F that could have been booked in advance and without capacity constraints (obviously, assuming a seat was available for sale....)
It's sad. I was actually excited to try out VX!!!! My lifetime value to them would have been way more than the expense of making me happy on this. That tells me that their operations or marketing folks aren't thinking straight. I'm also guessing that their folks aren't directly reading this board. Given that there were two of us in F that night, and I believe I was the only to call and complain on that flight, they have enough information to figure out who I am.
I'm guessing Branson's folks don't read this either. If they do, I travel premium class TATL quite a bit. My lifetime value to Virgin Atlantic is likely way more than $100 in vouchers.
There's an old saying "show me the money".
If you knew how many people claim to have the potential to drive tens of thousands of dollars while looking for a credit, well...
If you had a bunch of advance booking with them and made the claim - see how much I've spent and will continue to spend, that claim holds a bit more water, IME.
. And the flight in question was also showing as an A319 a week in advance in the booking engine. Once it switched over to A320 in the booking system, then guess what, no more dark plane coming to SAN. So, you can call it a spare if you want, but it has definitely been in service regularly. 
