Subj: My rotten Virgin experience
Date: 11/03/2004 02:38:54 GMT Standard Time
From: sbeebe1@tampabay.rr.com
To: virginlies@aol.com
Sent from the Internet
Last
June my mother and I were flying to Tampa from Gatwick. We sat in
the wide, center row of seats. After we were
seated
a family of four came on board. The row of seats in front of us were
empty and the fat, large and heavy son who
was
12 or 13 years old began jumping in and out of the seats. He threw
himself into the seat in front of my 82 year old
mother
and crashed the seat back on to her legs. The seats and leg area
on Virgin are verrrry small. My mother cried
out,
much to the boy's pleasure - he was grinning his head off. He then
bounced out of the seat, threw himself into the
one
in front of me and slammed that seat back, right onto my knees that have
been permanently injured when I was run
down
by a drunk driver. The boy was really enjoying himself and pulled
the seat up into an upright position and once
again
slammed it back into my knees. Except that this time I was ready
for him. I pushed on the back of his seat to
protect
myself. His mother saw me doing this and screamed for to leave her
son alone. She was very rough and
extremely
aggressive. I got up and complained to a female flight attendant.
She told me that the boy had every right to
sit
wherever he wanted to and that there was nothing I could do about it.
Then she went and talked to the boy's mother,
came
back and accused me of upsetting their family by picking on their son.
The flight attendant then wrote me up for
causing
trouble on the flight and had the boy's mother sign the complaint.
I was
advised that there might well be charges
filed
against me. I was dumbfounded, how could this be happening!!
Seeing empty seats towards the rear of the plane, I
moved
my mother and myself to them. Immediately, the lout of a boy and
his father came and sat behind us. The boy
began
to kick the back of my seat repeatedly. I got up and limped to the
attendants station and tried to get someone to
stop
this family from tormenting us. My right knee was swollen to 3 times
it's proper size and I was in a lot of pain.
When
I complained about the boy kicking the back of my seat and showed my swollen
knee to a male flight attendant, he
laughed
in my face. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, it was all so
bizarre. For the rest of the flight my mother and I
had
to put up with shouting and kicking all done by the fat lout with his parents
looking on. The little beast enjoyed his
tormenting
so much that he even followed me around the luggage carousel, standing
right next to me and smirking. As
he
gets older he will only get worse, I hope I never have to meet him again!
That
was my last flight on Virgin Atlantic. They seem to attract very
low-life passengers and employ equally low-life flight
attendants.
Good manners and courtesy are not a part of the training given to Virgin
Atlantic employees, and that is quite
evident.
Susan Beebe, Ruskin, Fl.