I am infrequent Virgin traveller. Firstly, I have a certain knowledge of the airline industry, and am fairly tech savvy, so I can trawl the internet looking for flights at the best price, get the seats I want etc etc. So its with that in mind that I look at the Virgin product and see massive holes in it.
Why was there a massive difference between the LHR and LGW fleets? Is the LGW customer not as important as someone flying from LHR? Is their money not the same? 2 years ago I flew LGW-LAS on a tatty 744 in premium economy. The return was SFO-LHR as in PE and it was such a vast difference, from the seating, ife, the crew, meals etc. I know the fleet has now gotten an upgrade, but thats just not acceptable.
I do not find Virgin to be the great company it once was. That puts me off flying them, and to be honest, they are not cheap. If they expect their customers to pay a premium to fly with them, at least have a better product that the competition.
Incidentally, when I booked that flight with Virgin Atlantic, LGW-LAS and SFO-LHR, they didnt offer me Virgin America for the LAS-SFO leg!!!