Originally Posted by
FFMAN
All well and good saying it's 'how it works'. The danger is that Virgin are already known as an expensive airline and this is confirming it big time. This is just a
PR disaster for them.
Frankly the product - past their sell by date 747s and 332s don't in any way justify premium fares. Tried both this year alone.
In my opinion TCX long-haul Premium Economy was a better product than VS (other than the awful T1 experience).
If they want to sell their own seats to Virgin Holidays then that's their choice but it's pretty useless for serving the business community or the independent traveller. Basically an expensive version of Thomas Cook.
To be fair, other airlines have been under scrutiny for sudden hikes. I remember the Liverpool Metro Mayor giving easyJet some heat when they hiked the prices up on the Liverpool-Madrid route to fares around £1,500 return as soon as it was confirmed Liverpool FC had qualified for the Champions League Final.
Yes the 747's aren't getting any younger, but they had a cabin refit a few years ago and are exiting the fleet over the next 2 years. The A330-200's won't be far behind once the neo's are delivered, but to be fair VS did spend a bit of money bringing them up to a better standard with new seats and carpets and installing PE seats.
I also highly doubt there will be many business passengers travelling to Barbados at that time of year and suspect a lot of independent travellers would have either booked months ago or are more savvy with routings, particular if they're island hopping or travelling to/from elsewhere.