cancelled flight Virgin Australia

[Laurent Sanhard]

VA 1141 SYD > BNK today
My Dad was booked on this flight today and was given an email 3 hrs before departure As below ...

*************We regret to advise changes to your Virgin Australia flight with booking reference number: C>>OOO. We sincerely apologise, as we realise that this may disrupt your plans.

We have re-booked you on a new flight. Details of your new itinerary are below.

Booking Reference: C>>>>)

Original Flight Details

Flight Number:
VA1141
10 Jul 2014 Scheduled Departure:
14:15 10 Jul 2014
Sydney Scheduled Arrival:
15:30 10 Jul 2014
Ballina


New Flight Details

Flight Number:
VA1141
13 Jul 2014 Revised Departure:
14:15 13 Jul 2014
Sydney Revised Arrival:
15:30 13 Jul 2014
Ballina
*******************
They re -booked him without asking on a flight 3 days later , Have the ops team at Virgin fallen out of their tree !!
Both Rex and Jetstar operated into Ballina today from Syd, after 5 phones calls to a Phillipine call centre he was booked onto a flight to Gold Coast at 530pm tonite

Virgin Australia , you guys have got to sort out your act , YOU Cancel a flight 3 hrs before departure and re-book the customer on a domestic flight 3 days later ??

[Ryan K]

That is extremely poor service and I'd expect much better from Virgin Australia. This is the sort of service I'd expect from an ultra low-cost carrier, not the kind of airline VA is telling its customers it's morphed into.

[Daniel M]

Send them a tweet or post on their facebook, their social media team are very good and will respond pretty quickly to any complaint.

[Steve S... 2]

I stopped flying them...

Got sick of the 'glamour' new look but still a budget airline service.

[Raymond Rowe]

Still the same poor service airline they will always be.

[Rob R]

All airlines cancel flights, sometime they occur at short notice. I think you will find this flight and a lot of others were cancelled due to Sydney flow reducing the number of flights per hour due to winds causing single (or planed) runway ops. If you want to blame someone, blame the weather and the government for not increasing the number of movements allowed per hour.

[Sarah C]

Rob, I don't think that was the original posters issue - he was more annoyed at the flight he was accommodated on (3 days later) and then spending time making calls trying to come up with an alternative. Flight cancellations happen but anyone would be annoyed if the best alternative is a flight 3 days later.

[Mick F]

Bit sour there Ray

[Rob R]

They wold have had to accommodate the other 160 odd passengers as well and given the limited VA flights to BNK, they would have tried to get all the passengers to BNK as quick as possible. Unfortunately the best they could do was 3 days later.

The same would have happened if JQ cancelled their BNK flight.

To say REX and JC operated their flights to BNK is pointless and shows a lack of understanding of airline operations when flights are cancelled/disrupted due weather. I don't have the specifics, but there is a very good chance the aircraft that was planned to operate the flight was unable to operate into SYD on time due to the SYD flow restrictions. Then because of the delays both Cabin and Flight crew operating hours come onto play. If the crew will exceed their maximum hours the flight can't go.

[Rowan McKeever]

I'm with Sarah. I take the issue not to be the cancellation in itself, but rather that an airline left all the hard work to the customer. Not even a phone call...

[John C]

Ahh Raymond, good to see you have not changed in nearly 14 years!

[Nils Kenny]

I must say, being in the Industry, Virgin have had so many problems since they put there Call Centre in Manila, I had One case a Staff member flying out of Coffs on a Sunday Night, got a call from the call Centre saying Coffs Airport was shut, then told them they were on the Monday Afternoon/Evening Flight. I told them to call them back and to tell the Call Centre staff to put them on any other airlines available to Sydney as they had to start Work on Monday morning, well the call Centre again told them there is nothing they can do as Coffs Airport was shut. They I booked them on a QANTAS flight on the Sunday night and when they got to the Airport there were 50 upset Virgin passengers screaming at the Counter staff and the Counter staff put them on to the QANTAS flight as well. I just can't understand when VIRGIN is going to wake up and bring the call Centre back to Australia and call it a Reservations Centre, then they might start to offer SERVICE. The Industry is all about SERVICE. PLEASE VIRGIN bring your Call Centre BACK to AUSTRALIA .

[Greg McDonald]

PLEASE VIRGIN bring your Call Centre BACK to AUSTRALIA .

They'll only do that when they can find Australian staff to work for $1.50 a day :) It's all about the money.

[Stephen Brown]

Greed is such a bad thing......

[Laurent Sanhard]

have flown them before , not saying they are a bad airline .
BUT they could have handled this a LOT better for my Dad's flight
, Book customer on next available flight to Gold Coast ( they have around 10 flights a day to Gold Coast ) and pay for airport transfer bus to Ballina or Byron , or reimburse customer the cost of transfer $55.00
Don't just book customer 3 days later on same flight , Customer service is disappearing in some places that is should be always :)!

[David Knudsen]

Personally, my experiences with Virgin Australia (I was never a fan of Virgin Blue) have all been positive, the service and attitude of the front line staff always seems miles ahead of the alternatives. My last sector with them (SYD-BNE) we had a weather-related delay of about 50 minutes, they were making announcements every 10 minutes and then offered free items from the snacks menu once we were on our way. The only area I think their low cost origins really shine through are in the legroom department!