Virgin Atlantic announces a loss for 2018

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• Aliks says:

  11 Apr11 April 04:45

  Oh well, 5000 Jet points lost. . .
  On a more serious note, how cautious should we be about booking internal flights with the smaller Asian airlines?

  Sounds like booking 6 months in advance might be risking it.

  • ian says:

    11 Apr11 April 06:46

    one might ask the same about smaller british airlines!

    ian. 🙂

  • Nigel the Pensioner says:

    11 Apr11 April 06:50

    They are so cheap that you wonder how they stay in business IF they pay for fuel in USD. That said, they do book up quickly BUT they also cancel flights very readily – or at least change times by several hours at a whim.
    Be aware that if you want to use an interline luggage through booking facility to your final destination, then you need to use national carriers and not budget carriers. Not playing this game on a return from Cambodia via Vietnam and Qatar to the UK could have cost $50 for a visa (having been in Vietnam already in the recent weeks for 15 days) to collect luggage in SGN simply to recheck it through to the UK!!
    I would suggest paying up for national carriers who seem (in SE Asia anyway) to fly most of the common routes internally, more reliably and more punctually. In particular, avoid Malindo Air and their £19 fares at all costs if you want a pleasant journey around Malaysia.

    • Crafty says:

      11 Apr11 April 07:24

      Quite liked my Malindo flight personally. Meals were included IIRC. Seemed a step above budget carriers.

      Although AirAsia is a budget carrier and in many ways an excellent airline too

      • Benylin says:

        11 Apr11 April 07:39

        How stable is the AirAsia financial position?

      • PAL says:

        11 Apr11 April 08:45

        +1 air Malindo business

      • Froggee says:

        11 Apr11 April 14:01

        AirAsia is fine. One of the few that is.

• Colin MacKinnon says:

  11 Apr11 April 05:44

  Maybe one should book it now with good travel insurance?

• MLM says:

  11 Apr11 April 06:29

  Virgin Atlantic are VS.

  • Nick says:

    11 Apr11 April 06:51

    VA are the initials or an abbreviation for Virgin Atlantic which Rob Burgess has understandably used in his heading for this article. VS is the IATA code for Virgin Atlantic…..and whilst we are at it VIR is the ICAO Code and 932 is the Prefix Code for Virgin Atlantic.

    • Mike says:

      11 Apr11 April 07:17

      I have been to meetings at work like this – where I don’t understand a word. (I really shouldn’t be in charge !)

      • David says:

        11 Apr11 April 07:41

        Except nobody actually uses VA to refer to Virgin Atlantic, because it means Virgin Australia. When I saw the headline, I wondered why HfP had decided to start reporting on the fortunes of their Australian cousins…

        VS in unambiguous – VA is just confusing.

        • Rob says:

          11 Apr11 April 08:31

          80% of our readers (admittedly 5% of commentators) are not in the aviation geek category who can recite airline codes.

          We NEVER use them in articles. Have you never noticed?

      • Lumma says:

        11 Apr11 April 08:07

        Only aeroplane nerds think in terms of airline codes, especially if they’re not obvious.

        It’s the same with obscure airport codes

      • Sussex Bantam says:

        11 Apr11 April 08:53

        Glad that’s not just me Mike !

      • David says:

        11 Apr11 April 09:18

        @Rob – I hadn’t noticed that you “NEVER” use airline codes in articles, because you do! The very next article about JetBlue mentions “BA”… 😉

      • Crafty says:

        11 Apr11 April 11:46

        BA is a logical abbreviation, whether or not it’s the “airline code” too is irrelevant!

    • Andrew says:

      11 Apr11 April 09:18

      I don’t remember anyone demanding that Virgin Trains East Coast (often referred to as VTEC) were referred to by their correct internal railway coding of “GR” when there were various Amex or Nectar offers on…

      • David says:

        11 Apr11 April 10:20

        That’s because writing VTEC was clear anyway. There’s no problem with making an editorial decision to avoid airline codes, but then you need to find an alternative that readers can understand without checking the HfP style guide.

        I’d argue that writing “Virgin reports loss” on here would lead most people to understand that we were talking about VS, even though it’s technically not accurate either.

        • Rob says:

          11 Apr11 April 10:32

          When you look at HFP, you see it as something alongside Flyertalk, Boarding Area etc etc. That isn’t what it is, and it isn’t what it was created to be.

          We have 30,000 regular daily readers, Dave, of whom 25,000 are ‘general’ types who do not read any other airline or frequent flyer sites. You (and me) are in the niche.

          I promise you that my wife (BA Gold from work travel, holder of a 7 figure Virgin balance) does not know a single airline code.

      • Doug M says:

        11 Apr11 April 11:41

        She must be able to have a good guess at the BA one…… no?

      • Shoestring says:

        11 Apr11 April 12:57

        heh heh – I prefer to write Gatwick as I usually get that wrong, is it LGW?

        LHR – I guess 99% of us know that one – with the others I tend not to bother to try to remember the 3 letter code as for the sake of typing a few more letters, you’re leaving quite a few people scratching their heads & it’s wasted effort

  • Speedbird676 says:

    11 Apr11 April 08:05

    Having lived in Australia, I immediately read Virgin Australia when I see VA.

    I work at LGW and they erroneously call Virgin Atlantic VA, too!

    • guesswho2000 says:

      11 Apr11 April 11:41

      Haha same, I read it as Virgin Australia, but my brain autocorrected it as being unlikely (though not impossible) that a UK site would be covering an airline which flies nowhere near Europe!

    • Crafty says:

      11 Apr11 April 11:47

      But it isn’t erroneous at all. Imagine if a national newspaper wrote “Virgin Atlantic (VS)” and then called it VS for the rest of the article. 99% of readers would be completely bemused.

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:

        11 Apr11 April 11:58

        Surely it’s better to avoid the initials if it can also mean something else in the same industry? That said, in this case it’s not exactly a big deal, the context is made clear in the article. This was just shortened to stop the headline being too long.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        11 Apr11 April 12:08

        At LGW, an airport, it’s very much erroneous. That’s like referring to LGW as GTW, its train station code, or LON, which is technically correct, but also covers LHR, STN, LTN, LCY…

      • guesswho2000 says:

        11 Apr11 April 12:09

        And they wouldn’t be bemused at all, by the article clarifying what VS meant in the headline, they’d know exactly what it was referring to, even if they didn’t know why it was referred to as that.

      • John says:

        11 Apr11 April 16:00

        I wonder why nobody refers to Qatar Airways as QA then? QA is the ISO 2-letter country code after all.

        Basically everyone in Hong Kong knows that CX is the airline code, but seen people on here call it CP (which was Canadian Airlines (originally Canadian Pacific), died around 2000).

        I bet 99% of Los Angeles residents know their airport code is LAX not LOS (Nigeria).

    • Alan says:

      11 Apr11 April 20:26

      Same, I read it as Virgin Australia straight away. As long as we at least stick to VS in the comments 😛

  • JJ says:

    11 Apr11 April 12:17

    Might be a good idea to learn a few airline codes if planning to use code share flights. Just looking at my boarding passes issued yesterday by Delta (DL/DAL) on my Virgin (VS) ticket to the UK. The flight number is given as VSxxxx rather than DLxxxx. Only at the bottom in small print is the actual DL flight number given. When running for a very tight connection (43 minutes- not recommended!) knowing your “local” flight number can be very useful when asking directions or looking at departure boards.

• LESLEY C GREENE says:

  11 Apr11 April 07:06

  West Coast Line…always in my experience has worked well and certainly the ONLY line with few problems, comfortable trains and punctual at destinations. I have always said it was the model to follow. PLEASE resolve this issue and keep the franchise with Virgin!

  • Nick_C says:

    11 Apr11 April 08:09

    And who is going to pay for the Pension Fund Deficits?

    The new franchise holder will be using the same trains. The staff will be TUPE’d across. There are contractual standards. The only change will be the branding.

    Virgin mainly charge for their brand name to be used. They don’t actually run much themselves.

    • Andrew says:

      11 Apr11 April 09:28

      It doesn’t matter who holds the franchise, there are only two sources of income for rail services:-

      Government subsidy
      Passenger fares

      The chap on R4 this morning was quite vigorous in his defence, he managed to deliver a Malcolm Tucker style performance without the dirty mouth.

      I will definitely miss Virgin when they go, they have a more customer focussed attitude towards train fares.

      When I travel from Oxford to Scotland, I have a choice of travelling to Edinburgh or Glasgow to reach my destination. If I leave Oxford before 9am and buy a return ticket to Edinburgh, it costs £332.30 priced by Cross Country. If I leave Oxford before 9am and buy a return to Glasgow, it costs £153.20 priced by Virgin. The only difference between the two journeys is that in the final 30 minutes, one train goes straight on at Carstairs the other takes a right turn.

      • John says:

        11 Apr11 April 16:07

        I don’t know who is paying those extortionate XC fares (looks like you might be, but most people would be on advances) but you should be able to halve that by splitting at the first station you stop at after 0930, as well as several other points (that isn’t a journey I would ever make so I’m not going to look it up just for an HFP comment)

  • Crafty says:

    11 Apr11 April 11:48

    +1

• Thomas Howard says:

  11 Apr11 April 08:11

  Has anyone not had a letter from Lloyds regarding the changes to the Avios Rewards Card? I’ve still not had anything and as much as I don’t want the card to change I was hoping to take advantage of the new balance transfer rate from my IHG after I pay my corp tax.

  • John says:

    11 Apr11 April 08:40

    I haven’t, but I didn’t get any letters for over a week (something dodgy was going on at the sorting office!) so it might have been lost with those…

  • Sussex Bantam says:

    11 Apr11 April 08:54

    Nothing for me yet – two cards both continue to operate.

  • Alex W says:

    11 Apr11 April 09:26

    Don’t recall receiving mine yet either.

    • Anna says:

      11 Apr11 April 15:14

      +1.

  • Tom1 says:

    11 Apr11 April 11:26

    I have – and I had to read it twice.
    I thought the letter was advising two months notice before the upgrade voucher offer ended – but my letter says that I can keep spending until Feb 2020 toward my next cabin upgrade voucher.

    Is that different to others, or did I misunderstand the article?

    • KevMc says:

      11 Apr11 April 14:17

      Myself and my wife both had the same letter. I read it to mean you have until the end of your current card year to hit £7k spend and trigger the voucher, but you only have 60 days left at the 1.5 pts / £ spending rate – any spend after that 60 days will revert to the new value (I think it is 0.5 point / £?

      • Tom1 says:

        12 Apr12 April 17:57

        That makes sense, thanks.

  • guesswho2000 says:

    11 Apr11 April 12:11

    Nothing for me yet, ‘card year’ resets in July.

• Paul says:

  11 Apr11 April 08:24

  OT / Bits. If I’ve booked (*2) BA Business outward on a 241 companion voucher, what’s the impact if I book BA First seat for the return? Thanks.

  • Rob says:

    11 Apr11 April 08:28

    What do you mean? You can call BA and switch to F for the return if you want.

    • Paul says:

      11 Apr11 April 08:40

      Rob, I just wanted to know if I could mix classes ie Business on the way out and First on the return.

      • Bonglim says:

        11 Apr11 April 08:53

        Yes it is fine
        there is no problem with mixed classes.

        I did a 241 on a first flight to Houston and a business class back from Chicago.

• David says:

  11 Apr11 April 08:39

  OT: Iberia’s famous points promo

  Sorry to bring this up again (zombie esque like the UK EU Withdrawal Agreement!) but I have a question about flights booked with points from the Iberia 90K avios bonanza last year.

  Has anyone had to change or cancel flights booked with those promo avios since 1 Dec 2018?

  I have flights for 2 people booked for Oct 2019 but now 1 of the passengers cant travel. Usually there’d be a change/cancellation fee and the avios would be returned. But as the flights were booked with promo avios in this case I fear they may just vanish…

  I wonder whether to chance Iberia’s rubbish IT on the presumption that it couldn’t find its face in the dark on a good day.

  Has anyone had experience of what happens to cancelled bookings using points under the promo?

  Thanks

  • KevMc says:

    11 Apr11 April 10:09

    I had to cancel our trip to MEX in Feb – I called them to cancel and they nor I made any mention of the promo points – all were refunded (as operator confirmed when he cancelled the booking), but it did take about 10 days for the points to get back in our accounts.

  • ADS says:

    11 Apr11 April 10:22

    if you don’t get any response here – worth having a look at recent posts on this FT thread – plenty of people are in the same boat as you …

    https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/iberia-airlines-iberia-plus/1915681-iberia-plus-offer-9000-per-booking-21-jun-24-jun-iberia-com-202.html

• insider says:

  11 Apr11 April 09:13

  “The new A350-1000 aircraft are substantially cheaper to fly than the older aircraft they replace”

  …and will also have substantially higher ownership costs…

  • Rhys says:

    11 Apr11 April 14:48

    Which is a known and predictable cost vs the fluctuating and unpredictable cost of jet fuel!

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