Virgin Holidays

My son and I are seasoned travellors and this summer took our first holiday with Virgin to Florida. The administration and hotel in Sarasota were fine but the flights with Virgin Atlantic were not. Why oh why was it necessary to be at Manchester Airport 3 hours before the flight left(ditto at Orlando)? Surely in these days of telephones and emails it must be possible to reduce this figure to an hour at most. The outgoing flight was 4.5 hours late leaving and the return flight 1.5 hours. The result was 7.5 hours plus "lets get there a bit early just in case" spent at Manchester. The &5 hospitality voucher did little to compensate.The seat back mini t/v's worked intermittantly and my letter of complaint was met with sympathy and no compensation.