Seat Review - Pacific Blue International Economy Class (Virgin Australia)

Virgin Australia (nee Blue) may have rebranded and retargeted itself in a flurry of fancy press events and well crafted media releases, but when it comes to the product there is nothing fancy or well crafted about Virgin Australia’s Pacific Blue international economy class. It is a flight that gets you where you are going with a smile but the bare minimum of extras. It is low cost seat, nothing more. The BOOT rating for Virgin Australia / Blue International Economy is 1.5 stars out of 6 or "Bad Seat". Here is the detailed (other reviews and scoring system for airline seat reviews here)
Getting on board	Score 0
I am Velocity Gold (Virgin’s frequent flyer program), Qantas Gold, United Gold and Singapore Airlines Gold. But none of that matters or means anything when flying Pac Blue. There is no lounge access for anyone in any status or any class no matter what. I put a post on Australian frequent flyer hoping that someone knew a trick or twist…but had nothing but crickets in response. On the Virgin website under the lounge section they mention how for every other international flight they do on V Australia, Virgin Atlantic, Etihad etc. Velocity Gold is enough to get lounge access. If flying from NZ there was mention of some lounge with names I'd never heard of. But in ex-Sydney on Pac Blue nothing. This is a significant weakness in this product. Lounge access is a critical value to a top tier flyer. The absence of it is felt and sets the tone for this product. I did get access to a priority check in queue which saved about half an hour on the land side (but then without lounge access what am I actually going to do with that extra time airside). Pac Blue is pure low cost carrier in approach but does have assigned seats. However, they have not initiated online check-in for international departures. By phone they will not set aside seats for groups/families sitting together. I asked over the phone “can you guarantee that all four of us will be seated together.” The useless reply was “we cant guarantee but you will probably be able to sit together.” This means we had to be at the airport 2 hours ahead of time to guarantee being together which mean 1.5 hours in the airport with no lounge access. Pure LCC. Note - DJ have announced a tie up with Singapore Airlines which may deliver lounge access but press releases of future luxury do not remove the sting of having to pay $5 for a luke-warm coffee on a hard bench in an overpriced airport.
The Seat	Score 0
It is a economy seat on a low cost carrier so you expect it to be small and narrow. It meets that expectation. To be fair, the seat is a reasonable size for a economy class seat. The tray table is a fair size and adjustable. The arm rests lift, allowing children to easily sleep on the laps of parents. The seats are leather and pleasant on the eye. All acceptable stuff. What is not acceptable is how dirty the area is in and around the seats. Carpets stained with what I hope is food. Seats covered in what I hope is dust and seat back pouches filled with tissues, dirt, wrappings and what I hope is not human waste. Filthy and unacceptable. If is fine for low cost seat to mean small but it is unacceptable for it to mean unhygienic. What is also not acceptable is the slant. For some reason the head rest slants forward not back. It is understandable that the LCC economy class seat does not recline much but it is unacceptable that the headrest pushes forward - not lean backward. By pushing forward it makes sleeping impossible. If it could lean back just a few inches it would go from impossible to bearable.
Entertainment	Score 0
Virgin’s live2air service combines a live feed from Australian cable television companies Foxtel and Austar. Means 24 cable channels covering sport, comedy, drama and kids programs. There is also a movie channel with 3 movies running on a loop (set start times). Cost is $9.90. That is fair and reasonable for a low cost carrier but I am not sure why they chose live TV vs on demand TV. For live TV to be attractive there has to be something on at the time you are on. Taking a day-time flight means the TV channels are full of...well…day time television. Hardly appealing stuff. The decision to use live TV goes from strange to ridiculous on the return trip starting in international waters. Clearly Virgin or Foxtel have not secured rights to broadcasts starting in non-Australian waters. As a result return trips to Australia involve a number of hours of "service not available" until Australian territorial waters appear. Virgin should replace this as soon as possible with an on demand service
Food	Score 0.5
There is lots of food on board provided you are happy to pay. Again -completely acceptable on a low cost carrier. But it is completely unacceptable that there is no free water option. The only water available is $3 for 330ml. It is well accepted that you should drink a lot of water on planes. The official recommendation is to drink two litres per day. For a flight you should increase this 50%. Means for each hour of flying time you need to drink between 125-200ml of water. To do this on DJ long haul adds a minimum $12-13 to the price of the price of each ticket. It should be a regulatory requirement that airlines provide water. Regulations aside Virgin must immediately change this position and make water available for free. Another peculiarity of the food is the timing of the hot food service. My flight was a day flight lasting 7 hours. The first cart came passed a few moments after take off (ie in the morning Sydney time). It was only made clear to me later (maybe I missed it) that this was the only time hot food would be served. This does not work for me (and probably for most people) to get on a plane first thing and have to eat the only hot meal. As Sydney dinner time approached all that was available was day old wraps and cheese and crackers That all said, the quality of the food on offer is better than low cost carriers I have flown in Europe through the sourcing of snacks from higher quality providers.
Service	Score 1.0
The staff were fantastic. They out-shined all other elements of the product. The staff were pleasant and lively despite a flight at horror hours and children running everywhere. A tribute to air crew. The plane was full of children running everywhere yet the staff dealt with all with a smile, a sense of encouragement and filled with great humour
BOOT Factor	Score 0
The flight is factor-less. There is not a bell or a whistle or a twist.
Final Score	1.5

Virgin Blue starts brand review - why not rebrand Ansett?

News out that Virgin Blue CEO John Borghetti has brought on long term collaborator Hans Hulsbosch to help with a brand review for Virgin Blue.

Hulsbosch previously helped Qantas with their brand review though I think the minimal changes of lengthening the Roo tail and slanting the acronym is more of a tweak than a review.

From press reports it looks like nothing is off the table including scrapping the use of the world "Virgin". Given the current DJ product and announced plans for it, I recommend DJ drop the Virgin brand, write a cheque to administrators KordaMentha and re-brand the whole business Ansett.

I am being facetious of course but there is some rational thinking behind this. Below is a table comparing the Ansett of 2001 with the Virgin Blue product of the same year and of 2010

My point is that as Virgin Blue chases more and more of the Qantas business (aiming to increase corporate share from 5% to 20%) it is getting closer and closer to the Ansett business model and further and further away for what made it a success. From the table you can see that the edgy brand and free food are the last pieces differentiating DJ from Ansett. They need to be very careful in this process that DJ do not end up catching just enough of Qantas share to lose what built their brand and suffer the same fate as Ansett.

PS: for those that don't know Ansett was the long term Star Alliance full service competitor of Qantas that went bust in 2001 after (but not caused by) Sept 11. Virgin Blue launched in August 2000

Liz Savage (EGM Commercial) of Virgin Blue on the difference between Euro and AU Air markets

For part of today I was at the Australia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit 2010. Highlight speaker of the seasons I listened to was Liz Savage the (relatively) new Chief Commercial Officer (now Executive General Manager Commercial) of Virgin Blue. Ninemsn is carrying the traditional news part of her speech around DJ's determination to carve a space in between the hard core low cost of Tiger yet steal premium customer share from Qantas. She announced a desire to double DJ's share of the corporate sector from 10% to 20%.

Savage's background (linkedin profile here) was with easyjet and Monarch. She took some time in her speech to share three key differences between the Low Cost/New World Carrier market in Europe and Australia. They are:

1. Number of competitors and low cost carriers: Compared to her time in Europe, Savage was intrigued to discover how concentrated market share was in Australia. This lack of competition was particularly acute for Savage when it came to LCCs. Europe is filled with point to point low cost carriers. Savage mentioned that her previous employer - Monarch - was a medium sized carrier (some 30 aircraft and 100 routes) but was also a profitable airline and of size enough to compete. In Australia, no matter how you measure the market, there a very limited number of competitors - on an absolute scale and relative to Europe;
   
2. Number of secondary airports: Savage reminded us that the success of Ryanair was in no small part due to the use of secondary airports. In Australia there are virtually no secondary airports, forcing low cost and new world carriers to sit with the same airport cost base as the full service/premium carrier(s); and
   
3. Need for an international network: European LCCs can survive and prosper on the back of point to point short haul. But given Australia's distance and market, a carrier must says Savage have an international network (either directly or a virtual one via alliances).

Great to get a new view on the Australian market. Any other major differences between the Euro and Australian air markets?

Jetstar on Virgin Blue - Perils of in-flight TV

In flight TV is all the rage with Low Cost Carriers because it opens up a revenue stream without the complexity of managing a video on demand system. Unfortunately streaming live TV comes with a lack of editorial control. Here is a photo of me watching a Jetstar TV advertisement while sitting in a Virgin Blue seat somewhere between Sydney and Melbourne. That is 192 people looking at your competitor's brand while consuming your product.