This is my review of flying with Virgin Airlines Australia. It was not the most pleasant flight, mainly because of the staff, but you get what you pay for.
I’m a Singapore Airlines girl. Have been since I flew Qantas to China in 2011 and the fiasco wrapped in a debacle that that turned out to be. I vowed that I would rather stick forks in my eyes than fly with Qantas internationally. So I switched to Singapore Airlines and they have never failed me. But flying Bali with Singapore wasn’t practical: a 5 hour flight would have been an unnecessary 12 or so hours, so I flew with Virgin.
This was my experience flying with them:
- I booked my seat beforehand because I wanted to try out sitting right at the back of the plane. I hate people sitting behind me, and I thought that if it was ok for 5 hours, it would be ok for 12. I was not assigned that seat, and I was disappointed to find that I was sitting in the middle of the plane. So much for my experiment! I’ll make sure I question my seat assignment on the return journey.
- You had to download an app for the inflight entertainment and use your on device BUT there was nowhere to charge your device while you were using it so you risked a drained battery. I mean, what the?!
- The staff were less than polished. One flight attendant said to me: do you wanna drink? I asked for tea, water and a serviette and I was almost desiccated by his withering, judgey stare…
- The meal was adequate… barely. There were two choices—beef with black bean, and a vegetarian tortellini—so what’s a non-beef eating, hardly-ever-grain-eating girl to do? There were limited vegetarian meals so attendants handed them out to those passengers who declared themselves vegetarians be switching on the lights. Of course, I switched on mine.
- When I got my meal, which was ok but small, I was amused to find plastic cutlery, a cold roll and hard butter, so I had a time of it trying to spread butter on my roll (which I ate because the pasta serve was so small). What was good though, was the wine and chocolate moose!
- The toilets (only two) were some of the smallest I have ever had the pleasure of peeing in. By the end of the flight, the waste bin was so full it was overflowing. And it stunk. Really stunk.
This was not a full flight, even though when I checked in I was advised that it was. There was no one sitting beside me, so I had plenty of room, which was a plus. And my luggage was there when I arrived in Bali, which was another plus.
Of course, I’d fly Virgin Airlines Australia again*. I’d just make sure I adjust my expectations down. They ain’t Singapore Airlines, that’s for sure!
*Update – I would NEVER fly Virgin Airlines again. And you can read about why here.
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