What a difference a fortnight makes. Virgin Atlantic celebrated its 25th birthday with Bearded Mogul (TM) Richard Branson claiming the carrier was in great shape despite the recession, going on to blow £1.3 billion on new aircraft to prove the point before boozing most of its £68 million profit away on a transatlantic bash.

Then last week Virgin Atlantic announced it was looking to chop up to 600 jobs and reduce the number of flights it operates over the coming winter. The daily service between London Heathrow and Chicago will be axed for the season – a service it only launched just two years ago – as well as dropping frequency on other routes.

Chief executive Steve Ridgway either didn’t get invited to the party or didn’t see Branson’s script, and said:

“The outlook for the industry is as bleak as ever and all airlines are having to shrink their businesses. We will look to minimize the number of compulsory redundancies and ensure we treat our staff as fairly as possible.”

Now the airline has announced a massive reduction in baggage allowance – for premium fares. From September, the maximum weight of each bag allowed will be reduced from 32kg to 23kg. Given that it’s the premium passengers that generate the profit for any airline, it seems an odd cost-cutting move to cut their benefits and reduce their baggage limit by nearly 30%.

Both Virgin and British Airways have launched near-identical sales today – both are offering return economy to the US from £259 in a sale that ends on July 14th, although Virgin Atlantic are currently offering a more extensive choice of dates into next year.

We told you last week how British Airways had taken the economic recession on the chin, quickly followed by a Kato-style karate chop to the windpipe. BA reported a loss before tax of £401 million for the year to March 31st, compared to a profit of nearly £1 billion for the previous year. One of the reasons cited by the airline was the drop in passengers flying business and first class – a fall of 13 per cent – because it’s on these margins that airlines make their profits.

Not so at their price-fixing compadres/hotheaded competitors Virgin Atlantic, who have just announced an increase in revenue to the end of February of over eight per cent, and a near-doubling of profits from £34.8 million to £68.4 million. The airline carried nearly six million passengers – still a long way short of BA’s 33 million – but have stated the improved performance is down to the increase in sales of premium economy, business and first class seats.

Virgin have benefited from a series of strategic sales throughout the year, which have seen transatlantic flights drop to as little as £250 for economy seats, and around £500 for premium economy. BA’s current tactic is to go straight for the jugular with a business class sale, although economy flights for Autumn are currently available for a shade over £300.

If you’ve flown with Virgin Atlantic recently, you may have reached a similar conclusion to me – despite a flurry of sales in the last six months, business is as slow as a legless donkey. From personal experience over the past fortnight, mid-week flights between Heathrow and New York are barely half-full; on my outbound flight last week, everyone had two or three seats to themselves, with capacity somewhere closer to one third.

Mid-week flights are always less popular, but it’s unusual for the passenger manifesto to be so short. So good news if you’re flying with Virgin over the coming weeks. Here are some basic points to watch out for:

- if you can, check-in online and reserve your seats as soon as possible. If you’re a couple and fancy extra seats, check the back of the plane and book alternative seats, leaving a seat between you. Or, if you want a window, book one seat at the window, then the aisle seat on the row behind. Other passengers will look for their own space closer to the front of the plane, but if the flight is light, it won’t be a crush to get off anyway.

- if you want extra legroom, just ask for it. You can’t reserve the exit-aisle seats when you check-in online, but Virgin’s procedures dictate that all seats on exit rows must have able-bodied adults occupying them. So ask when you check in, and you’ve a good chance of bagging the extra room. Failing that, keep an eye out when you board and offer to take the seats – if you don’t, they’ll only ask somebody else.

- watch out for empty baggage bins. Less passengers may mean less of a squeeze to fit your hand luggage in the overhead bins, but it also means that it’s likely to take more of a battering. Thanks to my pilot slamming the plane into the tarmac with the grace of a skating horse, I’ve a crack across the screen of my laptop, because it was only one of three bags in a long bin. Pack your hand luggage in tight with that of other passengers, rather than let it rattle round in isolation.

All of us find ourselves alone in a bar at some point in our lives, our mobile phone the only connection we enjoy with society. Sometimes, when we’re sad and blue without a friend in the world, we need something to lift our spirits; an unexpected offer, a journey some place new, a piping hot deal – or maybe a combination of all three.

The current recession does have an upside – the combination of our money-tightening ways and the weak pound abroad are forcing some companies to buy our business. One example of this arrived in the inboxes of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club members this morning; economy trips to New York between now and the end of May are available for available from just £225.

Prices haven’t been been this low for years; even before Christmas when Virgin traditionally drop their prices to the deck, a return flight was still £279.  For those with a little more cash to splash, a seat in Premium Economy costs from just £499 return.

So chin up, laughing boy! Book a flight to the city that never sleeps and turn that frown upside down!

As a tribute to our very own Paul Smith, aka Twitchhiker, who will soon be setting off around the world armed only with a laptop, a toothbrush, some mace spray and a Twitter account, here’s some more orthodox ways to trot across Mother Globe without spending a fortune.

All bargains were found on HotUKDeals and unlike Twitchhiker, you probably won’t be murderded in your borrowed bed by a psycho loner during your stay.

First up, we’ve got a 5-star all-inclusive luxury holiday in Turkey with a free room upgrade, all for the barely-credible price of just £259 per person. There’s also wild and crazy activities galore, including water skiing, wind surfing, tennis and volleyball.

We’re wide-eyed, but that aside, it sounds a bit iffy to us, and we’d expect to get pressganged into some kind of intergalactic fighting force halfway during the stay. If you’re not afraid of that possibility, there’s more info here. Eeek!

Next, it’s Virgin Atlantic’s 25th birthday, as you might well know if you’ve seen that crappy advert they’re running to commemorate the fact. Looks like it was scripted by Beardy Branson himself but that’s the sort of thing you can do if you’re the boss and ‘a bit groovy.’

Griping aside, there’s some cracking offers available over the coming weeks, and at the moment you can hop on a flight to Noo Yoik (where the tap water comes in bottles) for as little as £225.

Lastly, we’re back in Europe, and to be completely specific, Rome. Home of the Romans, as well as Romulus and Remus and Romeo from ‘The Adventures Of Romeo.’

Waffling aside, here’s a deal for a hotel with bed, breakfast and ‘extras’ for just £43 per night. You’ll have to click on the link to find out what the extras are, but they don’t include being locked in a chest freezer by a Dutch mentalist who you met over the internet. Good luck Paul!

(deals found by brixboy, octobergirl and Owensy)

Perhaps the most crucial step in ensuring a blissful flight experience is figuring out where, when and how you will fly. This obviously involves getting the best deal with your airline tickets, securing the most comfortable and strategic seat on the plane, and breezing through airport delays without too much stress.

So for Bitterwallet’s travel guide part 2, I’ve put together some tips which I’ve used in booking my recent trip out to Las Vegas, Seattle and LA for under £450 with multiple stops, which I hope will prove useful to some of you on how to take care of your pre-flight essentials.

1. Take your time when booking flights: They say that patience is a virtue, but when it comes to booking flights, most of us would rather book sooner than later in fear that the prices will hike up. Especially after we missed a recent airlines sale, we think the sooner we book, the better.   But you may miss a bargain like we did because of that.

Over the last 3 months, Virgin Atlantic has had about 3-4 flight sales. We missed all of them. But had we waited, their latest announcement on 30/12/08 of a worldwide flight sale as posted by Travelzoo (a great site that has a weekly mailing list telling you of the latest deals) starting from £259 could have meant even cheaper flights. Of course prices can also go the other way, so may be better to leave for holidays that could be planned at the last minute for some bargain deals.

2. Evaluate your options: There’s a reason why we love SkyScanner. Sure it’s a nifty multi-budget flight search engine, but it also appeals to our preference of arranging everything with just a couch, a mouse, and a keyboard.  However, Virgin doesn’t fly directly to Seattle, and if we just connected with the best deal we found online, it would have still costed us more than the initial direct £500. Indirect flights that would save around £100 stopped in random destinations like Detroit and North Carolina.  As my outbound would be from LGW, I discovered that it’s possible to arrange routes via both LA and Las Vegas.

3. Direct airlines may not be the cheapest option: Having never been to Vegas, I decided it may be worth a trip. Virgin Atlantic would be a direct carrier from LGW-> LAS, but the total flight price would come to £399 including tax, without our connecting flights to Vegas. So I called up 20 different travel agencies throughout the UK that are IATA certified. In the process, we discovered an agency in London with whom we were able to get multi-stop tickets for a total of £434 including tax per person.

The flight was arranged to not only stop over in Vegas for 2 days before flying to Seattle, but on the way back would stopover at Los Angeles for 4 days.  Dates were a lot more flexible than if I had tried to manually do it through multiple airlines websites. (more…)

Bitterwallet has pondered long and hard as to what airlines would do in the face of tumbling exchange rates; less flights or more sales? Seems we have our answer; just as the high streets have taken to starting their sales before Christmas, so too have British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

British Airways are offering economy returns from Heathrow to New York for £259 including all taxes, for flights between January and March.

Meanwhile, Virgin Atlantic are offering a similar price for an economy return – £258 – but with better dates available; flights can be booked between January and the end of June, and also for September. Perfect really, since anybody who’s spent July and August in New York will tell you it’s a disgusting experience amongst the humidity and grit of the city.

British Airways is also offering sale prices to worldwide destinations, while Virgin’s deals are only to the US at this time. No sale prices have been announced by the other major airlines yet, but it was January this year when Delta gave away return trips to new York for £150 return, so stay tuned.

God, I’m angry. I could pull the head off a mouse, I’m so apoplectic with rage. Actually I’m not, but I was mildly irritated reading this morning’s Telegraph.

See, nothing upsets me more than short people. More specifically, nothing upsets me more than short people loafing about in plane seats with extra legroom. The merest sight is guaranteed to have me wanting to punch the back of their heads. You’re short. You don’t need it. You’re a bastard. And so on.

Of course there are seats in economy with additional legroom, but these come at a cost. Thomson has charged for these seats for years, as has Virgin Atlantic and other airlines. Now other scheduled airlines are getting in on the act; Singapore Airlines is following the lead of Air France and is to charge customers for the privilege. A spokesman for Singapore Airlines said:

“We believe customers will welcome this service as it offers them more choice. The ability to confirm these seats prior to check-in will give passengers peace of mind when booking flights with us.”

Balls. This type of service isn’t to offer extra choice; it’s to squeeze as much money as possible out of consumers. And boy are they trying their damnedest; Air France is charging £42 per single fare while Singapore Airelines is charging £32 per flight - if you have a multi-legged trip, you’re charged £32 per leg.

The reason I get so emotional, is because a plane’s seating is spaced out to provide adequate legroom for passengers of average height, about 5′ 10″, so a shorter person can enjoy a perfectly comfortable flight in a normal seat. Anybody of my height – 6′ 4″ – can’t. Every airline is happy to take my money knowing full well my trip will be bloody miserable. I shouldn’t have to pay extra to travel in a modicum of comfort when common sense would ensure everybody did.

Of course that doesn’t matter in the slightest; a quick totting up of how many economy seats offer extra legroom per flight and how much revenue a single flight can generate, means no airline is going to change their ways anytime soon.

In the meantime, if you’re the prick who reclines their seat as fast and as hard as possible, as if it’s a time-trial, could you please refrain from doing so. Not only would it mean me arriving at the destination without bruised knees, but I’d be less likely to retaliate by sticking one in your back every opportunity I get. Short arse.

If you’re dumb enough to speak too candidly about how you hate your job on Facebook, you just might deserve losing it.

Derogatory comments posted to the ‘British Airways London Gatwick Ground Staff‘ group on popular social networking site Facebook are now being investigated by British Airways.

The group, designed as an online watering hole for employees, became an outlet for disgust and rage concerning BA customers and operations.

A discussion thread called ‘Things that irritate you more when working on check-in’ was home to some of the most inflammatory comments.

One particular poster named “Suely”, commented,

“The writer hit out at passengers who ‘put a boarding pass in their mouth and then hand it back to you; were smelly (first thing in the morning on a 5 o’clock shift); are running late and breathing in your face; and asking for a complimentary upgrade’.”

Another BA colleague called ‘Deepa’ referred to American customers having ’stupid accents’.

There is also a Facebook group called ‘Bring the Longhauls back to Gatwick!’ that has become the personal soapbox of many displaced long haul employees who feel like British Airways unnecessarily gave them the boot. The group owner says, “Cabin Crew are leaving faster than Dawn French from a WeightWatchers meeting because they simply dont get paid enough. More longhaul flying would provide them with better and longer trips which will mean more money!”

Although employee groups like these are quite the norm on Facebook, such slanderous remarks does not help the airlines improve its image, especually under the current public scrutiny of Terminal 5.

This BA investigation comes only one week after 13 Virgin Atlantic employees were fired for calling passengers ‘chavs’ and made allegations about the low standard of equipment.  Current BA employees involved in this facebook backlash may soon be spotted at a Poundsavers near you.

[Daily Mail via The Inquirer]

It’s either an urban myth or an established fact that the plastic-molded seating in McDonalds is designed to become arse-numbingly uncomfortable after 10 minutes or so, in order to move people out the “restaurants” as soon as they’ve chowed down. But what would happen if forced to sit in similarly unsympathetic seating with less legroom, six miles in the air for up to half a day? You may find out soon enough.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary is expected to announce his airline will begin offering transatlantic flights for just 10 Euros. While that sounds like an outrageously generous bargain, just take a moment to consider the conditions you’d endure on such a flight, and the clientèle you’d be sharing the cabin with. A two hour trip to Prague rammed with stag parties and a dozen roaringly drunk fat-mouthed women is grim. Tolerating them for up to 6,000 miles is likely to induce psychosis.

Ryanair has today announced a drop of almost 50% in its half-year profits due to a doubling in fuel costs. Perhaps not entirely understanding that having less money to spend usually means… well, having less money to spend, O’Leary said: “We’ll just have to keep flying more aircraft, opening up more routes and offering people more cheap flights.

“Economy class will be very cheap – around €10. But our business class will be very expensive. There’s always 10-15% who’ll pay whatever it costs for a wide seat.”

The transatlantic flights are likely to depart from Stansted and Dublin airports to New York, Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston, and begin towards the end of next year.

Sounds like a bargain, doesn’t it? Hold that thought. (more…)

A few clever crew members of Virgin Atlantic wrote a series of messages on Thee Facebook (if this was the BBC we’d say “a popular social networking site”) where they referred to passengers as “chavs” and mentioned cockroaches on the planes as well as engine problems. Presumably the cockroaches were the resilient black creepies and not another slur on the passengers.

Virgin Atlantic has promptly had the posts deleted and according to a company statement the thirteen crew members involved will be “leaving the company”.

This seems an opportune time for a Bitterwallet PSA. Hello, the internet is public. We know you slag us off behind that upper class curtain but please have the presence of mind to keep it to intra-cabin twittering.

[BBC]

Thanks to Bitterwallet reader bedlam for the pic!!

By sharing this, I’m probably going to get my teeth kicked out before I reach check-in. See, I’ve been enjoying an email ding-dong with customer services at Virgin Atlantic, after booking a return flight to New York two weeks ago. My gripe is that I booked my flight in a 24 hour window between Virgin announcing a reduction in flight surcharges and the reductions been implemented, hence I paid the full price rather than the reduced price. In my third email, I thought I’d explained my views in a simple and polite manner:

My point is that the price decreases were announced the day before I booked, but were not implemented until the day after I booked. There was a 24 hour window in which prices were due to be lowered but weren’t.

Would it not be in the interest of the customer for operators to mention that the airline has announced imminent price cuts when booking, especially when contacting the airline in this 24 hour window?

I constantly go out my way to fly Virgin (it’s cheaper and easier for me to travel to Manchester and fly Delta), so I thought that asking for a voucher covering the difference wasn’t unreasonable.

Whether or not you think I’m entitled to renumeration isn’t the point here, I’m not trying to garner support for a personal issue. What I wanted to share was the response from Virgin Atlantic to the above email. I asked a reasonable, uncomplicated question. After several days of hoping I’d go away, the customer service representative seemingly couldn’t be bothered to entertain my complaint any longer. Cue the most impenetrable, least consumer-friendly email I’ve ever received: (more…)