Our San Francisco team members are HUGE fans of Virgin America airlines so when they announced service to Dallas they wouldn’t leave me alone until I tried it out for myself. I bought a full-fare, first class, round trip ticket from DFW to SFO. The flight out was pretty good. Mood lighting, nice flight attendants, WiFi and great food. The next day I arrived at the airport in San Francisco only to learn that my full-fare first class ticket was seated in a middle seat in coach. After much to-do I accepted the middle seat in coach and waited at the gate. The gate attendant explained that the flight would be delayed as we were waiting on some late arriving passengers.
The rumor was the CEO, Sir David Cush, was going to be on our flight. When David arrived he took my his seat in first class. I walked passed him and took my seat between two men who were about the same size as me (i.e. big). The TVs in coach were nice and I thought it was a cool feature you could order drinks and food via the touch screen. Sadly, the system did not accept my AMEX card and I was unable to order anything. So I sat quietly in my cramped little seat as I watched David’s party begin up in first class. Virgin America didn’t offer me anything but a smile and apology for my inconvenience. I tweeted my frustration and an agent sent me a direct message suggesting that I should email him if I had any concerns – thought my concerns were pretty obvious, but just so there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding I figured it was worth a blog post. My opinion about Virgin America? I am biased, but I think they suck…
What would Sir Richard Branson have done? He would have traded seats with me (picture of Sir Richard in coach):
Wow, I could understand if this were a lesser Virgin employee, but Sir Cush deciding to displace a customer is unthinkable. The CEO should know better. That does not bode well for VIrgin.
I have a friend who works for Virgin America and they never sit in 1st class… not even the CEO. The only exception is if they are doing a special event flight – which sounds like the reason you were re-seated. Not ideal, for sure, but don’t see where you were treated poorly…
@Jon – I can assure you Mr. Cush sat in first and I can assure you I did not. You can’t see how I was treated poorly? Imagine that you go to a car dealership and pay for a sedan, but as you are about to leave the dealer gives you a bicycle and sends you on your way. Sure you can still get home, but you paid for a car and got a bike. Virgin sold me a specific product and replaced it with another inferior product – that is the definition of poor treatment.
Oh and @Jon, your IP adress shows that you are an employee of Virgin America. How funny: (IP: 205.241.31.2 , gw1.virginamerica.com)
Alex: you might like to take a look at this blog post I did about another guy who took-on Virgin online. He used his own social media platform to vent. http://bit.ly/9Bf6eA
Wow, unbelievable. Sir David Cush is clearly a member of the self-entitled class who views his comfort and convenience above that of his customers. Something tells me that Richard Branson would kick his butt if he heard this story. Hope you find a way to get it to him.
Wow – what an a$$hole!
I just made a round trip on Virgin, the DFW-SFO route. No more American for me if at all possible. I loved everything about it, and the fact that it was a brand new plane rather than a 20 year old MD-80 didn’t hurt! You did get screwed though…