Virgin flight to Orlando cancelled.

[popsynic]

Not 100% true unfortunately. Although I do agree that they won't put a 6 year old alone on the flight, my daughter went to New Zealand last summer to stay with her BF's family, she was 15 and he was 18. They flew with BA to Hong Kong and then Cathay Pacific to NZ and they were seated seperately. Now I know a 15 year old is not very young, but she was still a schoolgirl and therefore still a child. I had only agreed to the trip as I was taking them to the airport and they were being picked up by his family and he was a very responsible 18 year old. I felt pretty confident that she would be safe on the plane with her BF. She was extremely upset as she is not a very good flyer and for such a long flight she was terrified to be on her own and to make matters worse, it was her BF's birthday on the day of the flight and she had organised a little suprise b/day cake for him etc to bring out once airborne.

Both her and her BF tried everything to get the staff to re-arrange the seats but they wouldn't, I ended up going back to the airport to try to sort it out, but still they wouldn't oblige. I almost told them to pull off her luggage, but she desperately wanted to go.

Quite a way into the flight, my daughter asked other passengers if they would swap seats and eventually they found a lady traveller who agreed. So obviously it could have been done in the first place and would have saved a lot of heartache.

But with all that said, OP I'm pretty sure that they cannot expect a 6 year old to be seated without one of the adults.

sorry to hear this. Was it the UK airline that separated them too?, because this is against the aviaition authority guidelines which all do follow. It maybe that the 'child' age (in relation to pricing etc.. is perhaps technically classed as 12 maybe? Anyway, either way I am suprised BA did this?

Hope it doesn't happen to anyone else - and if it does I advise anyone to really make a fuss at check in

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

First of all, Virgin like any other airline will NOT make a child sit alone without one of its adults with it.
certainly, a child is classed by the CAA as 11 and under. Again, Virgin have enough common sense to not put a 12 year old far from the adults either!

It is a normal thing for airlines to combine flights when the advanced ticket sales are showing low uptake. Virgin have done this many times each year in the low season. There is no financial advantage making two half full flights operate the same route on the same day. As a conseqence of this, but not always, the return fight will also be cancelled, however it might still operate if the return flight has more passengers and the crew for that flight will be flown out the day before on the standard flight.

I am flying out on the 28th on VS27 and that is only showing half full in Economy (most Pe seats are full however and there are five of us in UC)
However, the VS 15 on the day is less than a quarter full in economy and only three seats sold in PE. However UC has only three seats available.

Both of these flights are operating (and are showing so on VS timetable, which does show for that week the 27 only operating Thurs, sat, mon & tue)
the return flight VS28 also only operates that week thurs, sat Mon Tue.

The VS 27 is not operating 2nd dec, nor Friday 4th and the VS 28 is not operating 2nd, 4th or 6th. Both flights are operating from orlando to LGW week commencing 13th dec

Now, the VS 15 seat map for 2nd Dec is still showing only the following seats allocated:
Economy 65 seats allocated, the other 308 not allocated
PE 4 seats (excluding the VH seats) allocated, 22 seats still open
UC 2 seats allocated, 12 seats open

If that is the case and this is real time allocation, I can see why one flight was cancelled.

 

[zara]

But why are all the seats on the seat map grey then if not allthe seats are booked.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

But why are all the seats on the seat map grey then if not allthe seats are booked.

Possibly that the screen you are seeing is the seat map for the cancelled VS27.
They may not have moved you all on the seat map to the VS15, or its just Virgin not organising a booze up in a brewery again

You will be on the VS15 on their internal booking system however.

Just keep checking back, or ring them up

 

[ClareH37]

I just wanted to add that I don't think it depends on if PE and UC are full because I was flying UC in Dec 2007, there was 1 spare UC seat on my flight (the VS27) and 1 on the VS15. Economy was only showing half full, PE was full - this was on both flights.

A decision was taken to merge both flights on the day (I had checked in online 24 hours before and nothing had changed then), UC passengers were downgraded to PE (and given a free economy flight anywhere within the following 12 months), PE passengers were downgraded to economy (again with a free economy flight anywhere within the following 12 months) and passengers who did not want to be downgraded were given the opportunity of flying out the next day (or 2).

Now, you could say it was unfortunate, but exactly 7 days later when we turned up at DTD to deposit the luggage (we'd checked in online the evening before), we were advised the VS28 had been cancelled and was being merged with the VS16. Same situation again, UC full (bar 1 seat), PE full, economy not even half full.

I will continue to fly with Virgin as I've just had brilliant flights with them last month, but I will now always fly on the later flights, it seems if they're going to merge flights those people on the later flights keep their seats, those on the earlier flights are the ones who are affected - I'm just going on personal experiene here.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Which site did you find this info on?

Go to Virgin Atlantics web site and click on flight times on the left hand side, then put your dates in the right hand box

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Clare,
there can be many reasons to merge flights, not only due to passenger numbers.
Virgin do not have like BA for example, planes sitting around to be used as backups, and it may have been that an aircraft was needed to service another route when a plane went tech. They look at the routes with more than one daily departure to see if they can be merged to free up an aircraft for example.

I would have been extremly unhappy to lose my UC or PE seat in that situation however!

 

[bombhead444]

Go to Virgin Atlantics web site and click on flight times on the left hand side, then put your dates in the right hand box

Cheers for that.

 

[ClareH37]

Clare,
there can be many reasons to merge flights, not only due to passenger numbers.
Virgin do not have like BA for example, planes sitting around to be used as backups, and it may have been that an aircraft was needed to service another route when a plane went tech. They look at the routes with more than one daily departure to see if they can be merged to free up an aircraft for example.

I would have been extremly unhappy to lose my UC or PE seat in that situation however!

Whatever the reason there were some very unhappy people on both those flights However, since then I'm pleased to say Virgin have redeemed themselves, at least in my eyes