OK Virgin Blue – what is this all about!
Mike Hays the MD of The Chairman Club, a specialist in top end corporate hospitality called me over the weekend to tell me his saga about trying to get from Adelaide to Melbourne on Thursday last week.
His plight was that his flight from ADL to SYD Thursday afternoon was delayed by two hours, meaning that he missed his onward flight to Bathurst, the last flight of the day.
When he approached the Virgin Blue guys in Adelaide and said that the delayed flight meant that he would miss his connection to Bathurst and were there any earlier flights , he could get on, he was told very curtly, no!
Now this is the interesting bit. He was also told that the transfer time he had allowed in Sydney was outside their conditions and it was not their problem.
Mystified what this meant, Mike was told that he had only allowed 50 minutes transfer time in Sydney, but Virgin Blue’s conditions say it has to be a minimum of 60 minutes.
Mike tried to explain to no avail that it was in the same terminal, but what really galled him and he tried to explain this, was that this rule could hardly apply to him in these circumstances as his flight from Adelaide, over 2hrs late, would actually arrive in Sydney well after this fight to Bathurst had left, so there was actually no transfer time at all.
So Virgin Blue, what is all this about and if you say you are a New World carrier, is this your new world and is this going to be the response to the time critical business travellers you are aiming to capture in the future?
Good luck if it is!
As it was Mike had to overnight in Sydney at his own cost and travel up to Bathurst the next morning, missing a vital meeting in Bathurst the evening before………..and it was not even his fault and he said Virgin Blue simply did not care, with Mike, prevously an avid Virgin Blue supporter adding, it would probably be Qantas next time.
A comment and report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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