Few years ago we were on VS022 from IAD to LHR and after boarding the CC came on and wanted volunteers to give up their seats, overbooked??
Various offers were made on the tannoy through hotel in Washington and upgrade to business class the following day,to compensation to free flights to anywhere on the Virgin network there were no takers till the last offer then our hand(s) went up and we took there last (best) offer
We had 5* hotel Washington for 1 night, upgrade to business class the following days flight £250ea compo and 2 free return trips, cattle class, but what the heck, to SYD
Did not bother me why they needed to offload but what a result
Of note was that when we got back to GB and for 2 weeks after checked the performance of VS022 and each day it averaged a delay of 90 mins
Perhaps not a similar problem to the tread originator but in our case perhaps Richard should put on a 744 instead of the usual 343
