Virgin Atlantic Airways Passenger Reviews and Customer Trip Reports

We flew first class from Dulles to Heathrow return. The problem for the last 2 years has been the flight to London. The return flight has always been delightful, but the flight over continues to be dreadful. We are not people who demand a lot of extras or attention. I could not understand a word from our flight attendant and she was quite put out having to help me with my seating. Same story last year, the attendants seemed tired and stressed on the flight over and just the opposite on return flight. The lounge at Heathrow has changed, but is still 100 percent better then Dulles lounge.

We have always travelled with Virgin for over 12 years to the US, either to Los Angeles or Orlando, this time we've come to Orlando and sadly not the best flight. We have always travelled PE and have been allowed to pick our own seats which has always been great, but was told not this occasion, this we could not do as the planes were being refurbished that depart Gatwick! So 24 hours before, we went online as per normal, done online check in and at last picked our seats so expected an updated plane. Once on board walked upstairs to find the old seats which like a comment earlier, were very shabby, some of them torn and frayed and the middle dividing table was dirty. The in flight entertainment was terrible, only 10 films and those were on a loop so could not watch on demand. All in all sadly we were disappointed. The 747's or 340 / 600 that fly to LA are of great standard lovely purple leather seats, fantastic inflight entertainment, so to be fair this should available on all flights. I would fly no other airline as we're true to Virgin but sadly we just wanted to make our feelings known. We leave here Sunday so here's hoping we get one of the new refurbished planes!

EWR-LHR on 340. Check in a breeze. Lounge staff welcoming and breakfast snacks good. Plane was well maintained and clean. Since this was an 8am departure, I found it somewhat weird that an alcohol consumption advisory was part of the initial announcement, no intro by service mgr. Good service by staff. Fast continental breakfast with lunch about 3 hours out of London. One glass of wine, any top up had to be requested. Rather unusual for UC. Food vastly overcooked. Bar was used as a service staging area. Not6 quite the experience VS suggests.

Paid $10,350 for myself and husband to travel premium economy - Sydney - London return. We are both in our late seventies and were willing to pay this for extra comfort. Seat was almost up to the wall and we were given two foot stools to put up our feet. Extra leg room? The stools could barely fit in between the wall and our seats. Seats hard and uncomfortable, arm would not raise up with the result I bruised my leg trying to get out of the seat and over the stools. Food absolutely appalling, especially breakfast. Spoonful of scrambled egg and minute hash brown. My husband is a diabetic and we could not make out what his breakfast actually was! Looked like rice with a spoonful of spinach on the side. We have flown economy many times and for the life of us we cannot work what exactly we received "extra" for our money i.e. double the price for a foot stool and horrible food. Never again.

LHR-LAX return in Upper Class. Please note I marked "Value for Money" as 0 because we used airmiles! We enjoyed every aspect of our trip. The service from ground staff and cabin crew was excellent and really stood out for us. The flights themselves were comfortable and enjoyable, food was good (well good for plane food!), nice drinks offerings, comfortable bed, use of the bar, no complaints from us!

Gatwick to Montego Bay and back. Outbound flight was in a refurbished plane. Flew premium economy. Good, easy boarding. Seats ok comfortable and wide but missed the rising leg rest from older seats. Found myself sliding forward on the leather. Food was fine. Crew were very cheerful and friendly. Inflight entertainment good. Liked the added ice creams, hot sausage rolls and sparkling wine/bottle of water on seat at start. Lots of water offered through out flight. Cabin was very clean and fresh in feel and appearance. Return flight was on a really old tatty plane. What a difference! Seats were so worn, but at least comfortable and having the rising leg rest good. Inflight entertainment was awful. So outdated. Whole cabin was grubby and tatty. One of the loos broke down five minutes after take off and remained 'out of service' for the rest of the flight. Evening meal was very good. Sparkling wine and water at start of flight again but no added extras after that. No extra water bought around either. Crew seemed very tired and were ok but no where near the standard of the outbound flight. Breakfast was inedible. Such a waste. Premium economy was worth the extra money as we got a really good deal with our holiday price simply because it made boarding and disembarking so easy. The seats were far more comfortable than economy obviously and to be up in the 'bubble' meant it was quiet and calm. The plane was packed solid downstairs. To eat off plates, have proper cutlery etc did make a difference, just felt more civilised. Don't think I would chose to fly Virgin unless, like this time I had to. Too unpredictable. Certainly wouldn't pay extra for premium economy unless part of a holiday deal, only worth it if you get it cheap!

Flew Gatwick-Orlando and back both ways on "Pretty Woman", she is far from pretty these days. Cabin was grubby and a bit smelly, seats were stained, chewing gum on IFE screen which didn't work. Magazines in pockets torn, covered in food stains! For nearly 4k for the 4 of us we expected the plane to be at least clean. Food, especially breakfast was bone dry and inedible and only offered 2 drinks. Pre flight info "warned" that they didn't have enough staff to cope, saw no staff for about 4 hours on overnight flight. Really disappointed, spoilt the end of a great holiday.

LHR-DXB return. What an awful experience, filthy plane and lavatories before take-off. By halfway through the flights the lavatories were disgusting, on other airlines the staff clean them. The cabin crew were very disinterested and appeared quite amateur compared with others. The food was just about edible and the drinks service slow and then stop. I fly a lot and rate them lower than some charter airlines. It is clear they are losing money and will not being seeing any of mine again.

Last month we flew Heathrow to San Francisco the flight and service was very good. The staff were attentive and the food had greatly improved. Returning from LAX to Heathrow the comfort for a night flight was poor, the service was substandard and the food was appalling, especially the breakfast. It will be a long time before I travel Virgin again.

London to Sydney return. Food was worst I've had and have flown with many different airlines over the years. Choice of entertainment wasn't bad but the controls were really annoying to operate. Leg room terrible. Tried to buy a bag of crisps because of the inedible food and they didn't have any despite being advertised in their brochure. Bought a bottle of duty free Vodka as a present for someone and when got it home realised it was covered in black sticky stuff which wouldn't come off and bottle all scratched. Never again. Only plus was the crew who were very friendly and on London to HKG a very funny chief steward who livened up the usually boring obligatory announcements.

Travelled with them for our honeymoon and wish I had booked British Airways. Delays on the way out as the pilot had parked the plane in the wrong place in the airport. On the way back we had our seat double booked after we had struggled to pre-book our seats together and when we turned up we were 5 rows apart! Most people had the same issue with seat booking. We rang before and explained it was our honeymoon so we would like to sit together and they still would not let us pre-book seats together. Only got a drink after 3 hours of flying so was really thirsty and food was poor quality. The gentleman next to us found something in his food. The plane we flew out on was quite uncomfortable and really old. On the way back we did have a new plane with the new entertainment system but found the touch screen useless and had a kid behind me playing games the whole flight (a night flight) which meant constant poking at the back of my seat. I am quite slim and found the seats fairly narrow. Ryanair has a lot more width to the seat, if only they flew to Antigua. The staff were very slow at delivering anything and assisting the passengers.

We flew from Sydney to London in June 2012 and returned at the end of July. The food was terrible, staff service was poor, seats cramped and the in-flight entertainment system was awkward to use. By the end of the first leg of the journey the toilets were dirty and smelly and the aisles littered with rubbish. We have flown with many overseas airlines in the past but decided to try Virgin Atlantic this time. We will never fly Virgin again. We had great difficulty with our seat requests and found the airline to be extremely difficult to contact.

Upper Class is very poor. I used to fly all the time on Upper Class a decade ago and it was first rate - not any more. The cabin crew don't care, the planes have not been updated, the food is appalling and the cabins dirty. A lot of the passengers in Upper Class were upgraded from Economy - not sure it is worth paying for Upper Class if others get a free upgrade. I would rather fly Economy on Singapore Airlines or Cathy Pacific!

We went to Shanghai and back this summer and were very pleased with the service provided on board, although the plane was very full both ways. Clean aircraft, good seats, abundant food (two full meals plus complementary ice-cream and salty snack) and crew always available for ordering drinks. The IFE could definitely have a broader selection for music but was fine otherwise and definitely up-to-par with Air France, for example.

Gatwick to Orlando and back. Old, tired aircraft, old fashioned loop video, poor food, only offered 2 drinks in 9 hours, staff not interested in providing decent service. Took 30 minutes to arrive after pressing call button to request another drink and didn't seem to want to provide any service at all.

If you experience any problems submitting comments on the above link, please use our general   Feedback Page