The Virgin Debacle(s)

DEBACLE #19 – I head to the lobby with my luggage (6:30 a.m.) to find 4 Virgin staff members. No supervisors in sight, but perhaps they might have some more information for us. No such luck. There is no bus coming for us at 8 a.m. here is NO bus coming for us at all. They have no firm flight arrangements for us. Not for that morning. Not for that night. Not for the next day. I have to be in London on Saturday morning at the latest.

DEBACLE #20 – The staff begins to hand out phone cards, but the hotel system will not honor the code unless the passengers put down a big phone deposit. Not very well thought thru.

DEBACLE #21 – We cannot eat breakfast as the Virgin staff who arrived at the hotel forgot to bring the voucher verifying that Virgin will pay the hotel for new food vouchers. The hotel refuses to issue new food vouchers good for the 16th.

DEBACLE #22 – I don’t know this is a debacle until I arrive later in London (yes, I do get there, read on) – The Virgin staff at the hotel promises me that if I missed my transportation in London (from the previous day) that Virgin staff in London will indeed give me a taxi voucher to travel where I need to go. I did have a friend that was going to pick me up in London on the 15th, but he was going away for the weekend on the 16th and would be unavailable all weekend. This was good news, as I would have transportation in London, if and when I got there.

DEBACLE #23 – In essence, the local Virgin staff at the hotel had no firm information for us. They kept repeating “I don’t have any information at this time.” We were not offered to be put on flights with other carriers, but we are being asked by Virgin to spend possibly another night at the hotel and the “trust” the Virgin employees who were working “so hard” to help us. My “TRUST” had gone out the window hours prior (probably when the Virgin employee could not tell the difference between 12 and midnight. I ask why Virgin did not send a supervisor to the hotel, and am told that all of the supervisors are all dealing with checking people into the flight that is leaving at Newark and that they are trying to get a supervisor to the hotel later in the day.

Hmmmm. Well there were flights that came and went the day prior, and no supervisor showed up after those flights were checked in. I decide that I cannot “TRUST” the ground crew any longer. I decide that I must speak to a supervisor, and surely there would be an answer if I did. I took the hotel shuttle to Newark Airport and stood in line at the Virgin “Ticketing” desk. I made sure that there was a supervisor in sight. I begin to hear
stories from passengers who volunteer to be bumped from that morning’s Flight 18, who were promised tickets to that evening’s flight. They were all given 2 round trip tickets, and the promise to leave that evening. I think to myself…”HOW DARE Virgin make such promises!!” There are 250 people still waiting at the Ramada for a departing flight, none of whom have been promised any form of compensation for their pain and hardship, and here is this airline offering free tickets to people to go blindly to the hotel and wait like us.

I begin to verbally warn these passengers that they best not leave the desk without a hard ticket in hand for the next flight, and that there are 250 people still waiting from the day before to leave. I catch the ears of the Virgin employees. Good.

I wait my turn, and finally get to the head of the “ticketing” line and explain that I have been waiting for 19 hours (since landing at JFK) for any further flight arrangements, and needed an answer. I am not one to make demands, but 19 hours of rude apathy from most of the Virgin employees can get anyone pissed off. To my surprise, the ticketing agent issues me a ticket for Flight 18 that begins boarding in 15 minutes.

DEBACLE #24 – Before I leave the ticketing desk (still remembering the 2 free tickets that all of those other passengers were offered); I asked what sort of compensation I would get. The agent says — “Ohhh, errr, uhh, the computer will send you a letter – it is all in the system. I can’t print it out.” Again, to paraphrase, “Trust us to send you a nice letter
offering you something nice to make up for the 24 hours of hell we made you live thru.” I later find out when I arrive in London, that there is no such note in the system for the computer to generate any such compensation letter. Is it really that convenient to LIE to customers? Is that what employees are trained to do?

I fly to London. The staff on-board flight 18 on Friday Feb 16 (unlike much of the Virgin staff on the ground in NYC) is lovely.

DEBACLE #25 (refer back to debacle #22) – We are late arriving to London and I finally get my bags at 10pm. Remembering the promise from the local crew in NYC about the London taxi voucher, I go to the Virgin desk near the baggage claim and they send me to the Virgin limo desk in the arrivals area. There I meet a lovely woman (Tanya) who says that she has no jurisdiction to give me a voucher. She also asks me if anyone has spoken to me about compensation. I said no. She looks aghast (jaw dropped, speechless for 10 seconds), and said that is just not right. She directs me to the Departures desk at Area A, and suggests that I speak to a supervisor about getting a taxi voucher. At 11 p.m., I do just that at meet the supervisor on duty (Roy Tarmott (sp?)). I try to explain the situation, but he was testy. He cuts me off before I even get 30 seconds into my explanation and says that I will not get a taxi voucher. He tells me to take the tube. That is the company policy, and regardless of the anything that has occurred, I need to take the tube to get into London. I ask him again, to clearly state that after a day and a half of one of the most horrid travels days I have ever had in my life, all at the hand of Virgin staff, which I am now being sent to the tube? He said yes, and that Virgin has to be consistent in how they treat their customers. In my head I respond “Yea, like unworthy crap!” I do not say it aloud.

I am submitting this “Debacle Diary” to inform you just how bad things are with your ground crew, mainly in NYC, on your phones and in London (in the form of Supervisor Roy). It is pretty obvious that the customer service training is quite different between your flight and ground crew. The flight crews have been uniformly lovely and intelligent. They really go the extra mile, no matter which class I am flying. The ground crew goes thru a different training program, which is quite clear. Rudeness is as much a part of their uniform as their red clothing. The Virgin ground employees do not know how to listen, how to react, how to communicate, or even how to say “I am so sorry.”

I am pleased to hear that JetBlue is instituting a Customer Bill of Rights after the last week of bad press. I would hope that you take this letter to heart, and begin to consider such a bill of rights for your own customers. I have been flying Virgin since 1984 when you only had one plane and have been a very strong supporter of your brand since.The dangerous, careless, inept ordeal I suffered on Feb 15th and 16th was enough to force all of that goodwill out the window.

It is now up to you Mr. Branson, and your customer service crew, to respond to my letter. I hope you treat my experience with sincerity.

Regards,

Hugh Hysell

We at Peter Greenberg Worldwide got in contact with Virgin and pursued the matter. Within 24 hours, Virgin responded with the following letter:

“Thank you for bringing this letter to our attention. I agree this account highlights a number of terrible situations experienced by Mr. Hysell. I regret to confirm that the VS018 flying from Newark Airport, New Jersey to London Heathrow on February 15 turned back to land at JFK, New York, because of a technical issue. The Captain took this decision as a precautionary measure. At no point was there any risk to the safety of the passengers and crew.

It was clear from the outset that the necessary repairs would take some time.This was further delayed due to the difficulties caused by the weather throughout the day on Thursday and the cumulative effects on Friday.

Ordinarily we would have re-booked everyone onto other flights with us, or with other airlines, but there were only a handful of spaces available due to very high passenger loads caused by the holiday weekends in both the US and the UK.

These very unfortunate and unusual circumstances combined to cause the flight to be delayed until finally being able to take off from JFK at 10:44 am on February 17. During this time we arranged hotel accommodations as well as food and phone vouchers.

While this was a necessary precaution, it did create a difficult and trying situation for our passengers. It’s very difficult to express how much frustration an experience like this causes and we apologize for the inconvenience and difficulty caused by this situation. We rarely have flight delays of this length and very rarely when there are no options to move people to other flights. For this reason we have offered affected passengers who traveled on the VS118 on Saturday a complimentary ticket as an apology and passengers who chose not to travel were offered a full refund.

Mr. Hysell’s letter has been given to our Customer Relations team who has already called him later directly. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any further questions.

All my best,
Brooke

Brooke Lawer
AVP Corporate Communications
Virgin Atlantic Airways”

Following is the thank you we received from our reader:

“Thank you so much for assisting me in this ordeal. I did in fact get a phone call from Kathy O’Shea, the manager of Customer Relations. In her own words who said that the way I was treated was “unacceptable” and “horrid.” I only hope that my letter sparked an internal review on their customer service training modules.

Best regards,

Hugh Hysell”

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To learn more about Virgin check out Virgin America: Short-Haul Flights Made For Hipsters.