I left Virgin a few years back when it was a circus without direction. My partner still works there.
Borghetti has done wonders for the place, and it's clear the staff now actually have some pride in who they work for. The british clown has toned down and reduced his appearances, and those face-painting star-jumping clowns in the cabin have hit their mid 30s/40s, realised that snagging a pilot isn't likely/worthwhile and have either left or grown up.
Having flown for work a lot on QF, and a lot on VA for leisure - the comparison is becoming stark.
VA is doing very well compared to QF - the attitude of passengers says it all. The QF converts seem to be easily pleased at VA.
That said, VA seems to be a major basket case in other areas.
This month's inflight magazine says it all - almost like it's a badge of pride. Check out the fleet:
Fokker 50, ATR 72, Fokker 100, Embraer 190, 737-700, Airbus A320, 737-800, Airbus A330, 777-300.
Once you've worked out just what you're flying on (let alone exactly WHO), the next challenge involves finding out exactly what the inflight service actually involves:
Turns out it matters what seat you're in, what ambiguous booking class you have, what the heading is on the FO's indicator, what altitude you're at, what time of day, who the actual operator of your flight is (cause every-joe-blow knows that your 'Virgin Australia' flight could be infact operated by a myriad of other airlines/subsidiaries). Flying PER-BME? Are you on a F100 or an E190? Over 4hours? North South or East West? My most recent encounter was a bit like the cheese sketch from Monty Python.
Now you're on your way, what are you going to do during your flight. Well, you'll need your Jeppesen sized inflight magazine to determine whether you'll get Foxtel, Wifi, RedTv, or bugger all - before you determine if the movie 'Kenny' is showing on your flight!
The whole thing reeks of the worst years of Ansett when there was just no standardisation - and it pisses people off.
Before you lot at QF start feeling big (i've worked there too!), it's just as bad over there.
The winner will be the one who standardises their whole operation - QF almost did it a few years ago, but now that Virgin seem to be calling the shots service wise, they're both as dysfunctionally impulsive as each other.