Not as Good as it Used to be

We travelled to Florida in April 2013 - for a special anniversary - we booked through Disney who used Virgin Atlantic. Disney were brilliant, customer service as one would expect was exceptional and should be used as benchmark for other companies.

However Virgin Atlantic were not in the same league for customer service. We felt that the service provided onboard was like a factory process - there appeared no real interest in customer satisfaction and the staff appeared more interested in themselves than providing a good standard of service.

The food was poor compared with previous flights I have had with Virgin. The final insult when coming back into Gatwick we were supplied with a breakfast of a cereal bar and a muffin, before undertaking a 3 hour drive I needed to buy additional supplies to stop myself feeling faint.

I would like to say that the above two comments were unusual but my daughter on a recent flight to New York had exactly the same comments to make.

Whilst at MCO we were offered an upgrade - which amounted to $80 for 2 persons. Asked if this was an upgrade to premium economy and told yes by a sales person - who took me to one side to process the upgrade avoiding the queue (sounded excellent value and service). Hurried through security and checked on my laptop to see where the upgraded seat actually was. We had been placed in a worse (economy) position than we had previously had - having researched and booked the 'best' economy seats for our needs. Finally managed to find a Virgin staff member - who was very understanding and stated they had problems with the sales staff making incorrect claims. Spoke to the sales person's manager who stated they believed their sales person had not made such claims (admirable to support your staff) I asked if he was calling me a liar to which he replied; 'No I think you are mistaken'. He then went on to make a snide remark that I should never expect an upgrade for such a small amount of money. Very rude and self righteous individual. I was refunded the money and placed in worse seats than the 'upgrade' and far worse than my original seats.

I have flown with TWA, Delta and American Airlines on the same route and never had any problems - however always thought you would get a better overall standard from Virgin (never again). Next time will try British Airways (who for some strange reason when I recently researched a family holiday through Disney were being used with American Airlines - but I couldn't see Virgin).