Virgin Atlantic Airways - VIR > Reviews > A terrible pun for the title would be too easy.

Author's product rating:   

Food Quality	Satisfactory
Customer Service	Friendly and attentive
Punctuality	Good
Space	Fairly Comfortable
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	British .  Quality .  An established name and company .
Disadvantages:	They can't fly you everywhere you want .  They can only fly from a few airports .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I like Virgin Atlantic. I used to do a lot of travelling with my parents back when I was just a young lad. As a family we were quite adventurous with our long haul flights; my mother is Australian and so flights around the world where never out of the question. Virgin Atlantic will not fly you around the world; they’ll fly you to the United States of America. Concorde (the fully functional kind) aside, I can’t think of a better way to make the transatlantic hop than in a Virgin plane.

One of my earliest, strongest memories as a child is of a Virgin plane and the flight that followed. I was in an airport, I couldn’t tell you which although I can assume it was Heathrow or Gatwick and I was looking out of those huge windows most airports have that allow you to watch the goings on down on the runway. I didn’t much like the airport, everything was so busy, and everything was so official and scary, the police even walked around in armour and with guns. Let me re-iterate that I was just a young boy. Then, to my wonderment, an aircraft taxied right past the glass window I was standing looking out of. The tail wing of the plane didn’t have the flag of its country of origin on it (I had been playing “work out the country from the flag” game. Sad, I know) instead there was a painting of a woman in a saucy pose and the words “The Scarlet Lady”. That was the plane that would be taking me to Disney Land. That was the plane that would be carrying me at hundreds of miles an hour over the Atlantic Ocean.

Virgin stood out from the crowd then and they still stand out from the crowd now. They stand out not just because of the bright colours and the expected friendliness of any venture you’d associate with the famous Richard Branson (a name you’d expect even a Microsoft Spellchecker to know) but because they offer a quality, cost conscious service.

In order to judge Virgin fairly I think you have to admit that they operate in a niche market, a hell of a big niche market, but a niche market none the less. It isn’t a fault of Virgin that they can’t fly you from Edinburgh to New Zealand.

Virgin will take you from either Heathrow or Gatwick to over 18 different countries … er, okay, the website says 18 different destinations across the world. I suspect then, that you’ll find Virgin takes you to a number of different airports in the USA and a few in Asia. I’ll get on to the Asian link in just a touch. I want to quickly summarise the business history of the airline as presented by the webpage. I live with the hope that there are other people in the world who find this sort of background interesting too.

When Richard Branson sold the Virgin Record Group to Thorn EMI he made over £1bn. Most of this money he ploughed back into the airlines (what the webpage doesn’t say is that he also bought a chain of cinema licenses which he tarted up and sold off at a profit) as investment and upgrade. He then sold slightly less than half of Virgin Atlantic to Singapore Airlines (what the webpage doesn’t tell you is that he also bought nearly half of Singapore Airlines at the same time… cunning move!) and raised even more money. This new money allowed not only more investment into Virgin Atlantic but also gave them rights to fly into the highly competitive Asian airspace. This business smart move is why you are now able to fly to Shanghai from London in a Virgin Plane.

I suppose many people reading this only care about two things; the Price of the flight and the quality of the flight.

British Airways has decided to concentrate (highly) on its business customers, Virgin does that to. In fact, Virgin had that idea first. The difference is that Virgin manages to woo the big money of corporate tickets without sacrificing the quality it offers to private or family tickets. It isn’t cheap. Airline tickets to America aren’t really ever going to be cheap and they’ll probably also always be highly volatile. Virgin, though, is highly competitive and so you can be rest assured that whatever you pay for your tickets that you’ve done well for yourself price-wise and are getting to travel with an established, reputable, British company.

I have plenty experience of Virgin flights. I’ve travelled with them a number of times. In all my time with Virgin I’ve always found them to be helpful and attentive. The stewardesses and the stewards on the flight are help - and this is the plus - and are intelligent to. If you’re looking ill (as my brother was) then they’ll volunteer suggestions and help, rather than just pretend to be busy until your flag them down or press the button.

The aircraft in the Virgin fleet are well maintained and clean. I’ve never had the luxury of flying First Class with them but I can tell you that the “third class” section of the plane isn’t a pile ‘em high, fly ‘em cheap set of chairs. If you’re only used to flying Go or EasyJet then a Virgin flight will come as a pleasant surprise to you.

In all, highly recommended.