I recently had the misfortune of using Virgin to fly from
London to South Africa. It was by choice – you don’t know until you try.
Suffice to say (spoiler alert) it was a terrible experience.
However, I have the need to vent as long haul flights are generally pain and
torture for anyone except the filthy rich or tiny.
I am the guy you don’t want to sit next to. I am both tall
and overweight. So, take from the big guy – I don’t want to sit next to you either
Mr Average. You will assume its ok to elbow me off the arm rest or to resort
displaying your anger in passive aggressive puffs and grunts.
Sidebar: I read this and I agree with the
comparison. http://www.printmag.com/imprint/a-curious-similarity/
No, I am not trivialising what happened back then. But we are punished for
being normal passengers.
As I am aware I need more space, I booked my seat and the
coughed up extra money for extra legroom seats. On the return journey I paid a
further levy for the Emergency exit.
When we boarded the flight we were in the middle FIVE seats.
My wife is short and it was snug for her. Why you ask? We had lots of leg room
– this is true, but the seats are a lot narrower than even Easy Jet’s seats!
As the flight progressed I saw a number of average sized
people not being able to stay seated for than 30 minutes at a time….on an
eleven hour flight. As I said, I was conscious to look around a folks that I
would assume may be more comfortable. The routine for the entire flight was sit for
thirty minutes and then stand up and let the blood back into my legs
Sidebar: the <expletive> headphones broke
and the inflight entertainment system was great …back in the 90’s. Where it
could proudly sort its 2 degree viewing angle with washed out colours.
I have
complaints about my fellow passengers to and I know the airline cannot really
control this, but the cabin attendants did not even attempt to help. The young
boy behind me had his feet up against the chair at 3am and the family in front
of me played musical chairs all night. Gee, I wonder if it was because they
were uncomfortable too.
Sidebar: Reclining chairs in Economy (Cattle
Class) is uncalled for – stop it you inconsiderate fool. The airlines should
just disable the reclining chair. There is no space.
This is the
reason they do not allow sharp objects. It is not for fear of terrorism; it for
the fear of what may happen to a desperately uncomfortable and sleep deprived
person at 4 am in the morning reaches for said sharp object.
On the
return journey I paid another levy for the seat at the exit. I was armed with
the knowledge and experience of my inbound flight and thought it best to act
with that knowledge. I followed this up with a Q&A session with the lady at
the check-in counter. I came away satisfied that I may actually have a decent return
flight to the UK.
I boarded
with childlike naivety and enthusiasm; just to have it cruelly crushed by
reality. The seats at the exit do indeed have oodles of legroom. You could be
7’2” and be fine. However the seat was even narrower than the other seats. Only enough for a 'cheek' at a time and I had bruises the next day.
Sidebar: Screen still shite and the seat is too
narrow to get the headphones plugged in. Also, who the f*** still has the earphones
plug in the armrest? Oh yes, someone who has not updated their planes since the
90s.
Apologies for the ‘brown’ and the other word, but this
really upsets me. I spent a lot of
money, for me anyway, to fly long haul and paid extra for some comfort, but it
was all a lie. Thanks Sir Branson!
I spent the duration of the flight taking turns with another
passenger using the cabin attendant jump seat as it was ‘super comfy’ by
comparison. She would chase us whenever she walked past and did not look
impressed when I offered my seat as an exchange.
Overall, this was an awful experience with mediocre service.
Not what the brand sells you and I guess that is the problem with it. The sales
pitches, so carefully crafted to beguile and deceive you.
This has made me think, there are more problems overall with
long haul flights. Particularly the overnight flights. We perceive these as
ideal, sleep a spell and wake up at our destination. As I am ranting about
Virgin, we will continue with them as an example. I like to offer a solution
with a complaint. A saying that has resonated with me from a previous job: You moan it, you own it.
A rough, first draft….
Your flight boards at 10pm, then at midnight you get served
what is essentially a ready meal. Who of you eats a full meal at midnight? If
you are out on the town that time of day is reserved for greasy chips or en
equally greasy meaty treat, not a sit down meal? With coffee offered at 1am?
No, that is not ideal and then once you have survived your
Marine Corp style sleep deprivation training you get a full English breakfast
(ready meal style again - blegh) at 6am. As there are too few loos you can’t
well you know…to ‘make space’…
So, you are left either forcing the food down or not eating
at all. The just seems ridiculous.
I would rather have Virgin offer me this:
Book a flight and take a voucher to eat at the airport –
this encourages passengers to arrive early so they can have their supper at a
decent time at the airport and in relative comfort. Then on the plane take the
cruise ship approach, but preregistering your credit, say at ticket time. This
makes transacting on the flight for light snacks, pre-packed sandwiches and
Duty Free shopping simpler. Remember, the drinks was not part of your ticket so
no excuse for free stuff. This also avoids that one passenger that has ALL the
small bottles of booze and snores all night. I do think though, that water,
coffee and tea should be free. The coffee and tea are not the best so should be
cheap to add to the flight.
For the morning, you can get you free coffee\tea\water or
paid for juice\sandwich to get you going, if you want.
Food issues dealt with…next Seats…
The air plane is use was Airbus A340-600. Don’t worry we are not about to geek about out air plane tech, it is just the model in use.
There are 45 fully reclining seats and the cost of those
tickets are way out of my reach so not an option. (yeah, I know...work harder right?)
Idea 1:
38 Premium
Economy (playing fast and loose with the word ‘Premium’ Seats) and 233 cattle
class sardine can seats.
Using
average prices to work to my example and currency is GBP.
(38 x 1500)
+ (233 x 750)
57000 +
174750
This gives
us:
£231750 just
on ticket sales. Then there is the £70 return surcharge on the extra legroom
seats. I am not sure how may there are, but for the sake of argument let’s say
a third are:
77 x 70 =
5390
Total ticket
sales gross income estimate:
£237140.
We do not
want to feed anyone in this flight so let’s remove 20 quid per meal – an over
estimate, but hey ho:
271 x 20 =
5420
Now, our total
income is:
£231720
Let’s say
you make the entire plane ‘Premium Economy’. You could probably do 5 ‘banks’ of
seats with loo’s:
5 x 38 = 190 passengers
To keep the income unchanged the cost would have to be £1220
per ticket. And that is the rub, the airlines NEED us to buy those sh!tty cattle class tickets.
Ø
Sidebar: Personally, I would pay up to £1000 a
ticket for ‘Premium Economy’ with supper in the Virgin Lounge beforehand and no
breakfast; just a coffee or drink. Ditch the infotainment and offer rental
iPads with docks. So, I can rent one if I don’t have one or bring my own.
Idea 2:
Make all the seats in in the middle bank extra legroom, drop
one seat from the configuration to make it four across and increase seat width
to 18.5 and have two armrests. This increases the comfort a little.
You could make the base price for regular economy £750 and
extended economy £800 and Premium Economy £1250.
Crazy Idea 3:
Replace the sleeper beds with a restaurant and bar, make all
seats premium economy and have a formal place to have supper and socialise
during the flight. £1250 a ticket; sign me up.
Conclusion
Mostly, I would like to see the airlines acknowledge their
passengers more. We all know the bottom line is the decider for how they price
these flights and consequently arrange the seats. They do not really care about
the customer. They will push the limits as far as they can to increase their
profit. It is a business after all. However, I refuse to believe a compromise
is that far off where I can take a long haul flight and know that at least, I
can enjoy the flight, watch a movie and enjoy my destination. The rampant exploitation
of passengers is ridiculous. And yet, we all just nod and continue as if we owe
the big corporations something. We don’t, they owe us, we keep them all alive
and in their big houses and fancy yachts.
One last sidebar, my preference of Airlines for long haul
flights:
1.
Emirates – great, just hate the stop over.
2.
British Airways – a long way behind Emirates,
but still surprisingly better than most.
3.
SAA- Yes, they are third, but don’t let that
fool you. They are terrible. I would not take a free flight.
4.
Virgin – In some ways on par with SAA, but as
they rinsed me of my money and did not deliver they get last. At least SAA made
no false promises.
I am just saying....
Some additional websites to help turn your seat hunt into an OCD:
http://gizmodo.com/how-to-get-the-best-sleep-of-your-life-on-an-airplane-1598708044/+alanhenry
http://www.seatguru.com/
http://seatexpert.com/
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