Journey of Grief
I too suffered at the hands of Virgin's uncompassionate
staff. I live in San Francisco and got the dreaded call that my
46 year old brother had died suddenly in Ireland. In shock I left
the booking up to a travel agent and expressed my wish to travel on
British Airways. She was unable to get me on with that
airline and the only alternative was to fly with Virgin against my will.
I had so many problems in the past when I took my
three very young children on Virgin, it was such a horrific journey
it's too upsettung to go into. With much resentment I faced the
red uniformed young woman at the Virgin counter at SFO, I was visibly
upset when I told her I was going to Ireland for my brother's funeral,
I have a herniated disc in my spine and hoped she would sympathize and
give me a decent seat. Her Russian accent first of all was very
hard to understand but I think what she said was the flight is full,
nothing I can do. When I asked to see her supervisor in the hopes
of some compassion she said she was unavailabe. She then asked
for a letter to prove my brothers death and a letter from my doctor to
prove my medical condition. Now for those who have ever had a
loss in their family know that it is very hard to function reasonably
and tracking down letters for an airline is not top of your list.
As she was so unhelpful I took down her
name ....... big mistake. My husband watched her tag my bags to
Heathrow instead of Cork, when he pointed this out to her she said
it was too late now. At this point I could not take anymore, I
was sobbing and all the passengers in line behind who saw what she
was doing were equally as shocked. I told her the clothes in the
luggage she had incorrectly tagged to London were the clothes I had to
wear to my brother's funeral as oon as I reached Ireland. In a
big display of temper she stormed off and 20 minutes later retagged my
bag. For revenge the seat she gave me was directly behind the
bulkhead where a little baby screamed for most of the journey.
The staff on board were no better, to them I explained my
situation and my reason for travelling, they could not give me a better
seat they said as I had an economy ticket which incidentally cost $960
because I had bought it on that day. They said if I had paid an
additional $500 before I boarded then they could have found a better
seat! As with so many disruntled passengers I too wrote to
customer service and was fobbed off with two $25 vouchers and wonder
what use they are to me as I would never set foot on a Virgin aircraft
again no matter what the circumstances.