[Anonymous]

[Airpocket]

VS claim that the currenct economic climate has compelled the airline to suspend flights to BOM (it still continues to fly to DEL, though).However, what isn’t widely known is that VS is particularly affected by clients switching to alternative carriers on the LON-BOM route as VS’s service in all three classes has now reached a nadir.I’ve been told by my sources that even Air India (!) provide a better service on this route.
Personally, good riddance I say!

[pat_travels]

VS351 flies for the last time tomorrow BOM-LHR.
This route has seen fierce competition in the last year with BA, VS, Jet, Kingfisher and Air India all offering direct routes plus any number of other carriers offering cheap alternatives via their hub in EU or Middle East.

The quality standard is high on this route, Air India has brand new state of the art 777, Kingfisher and Jet have some of the best premium cabins and service in the sky and at competitive rates and with a good feeder network from their domestic and regional routes to Mumbai.

With that stiff competition VS opted to leave. BA continues to invest with a new Galleries lounge opening soon

[ajay_p8]

I’m not at all surprised that VS chose to pull out. They never really understood the Indian market, which is both price and service sensitive, and did some pretty stupid things. For years I ended up flying to New York on BA because VS never matched the BA “I” class fare in Club, or restricted their offering to their most unattractively timed flights. More recently they pissed everyone off by adopting a zero tolerance policy towards excess baggage, and at the same time keeping their baggage allowance at 30 Kgs in Club when BA and Jet were allowing 69 Kgs!. I can vouch for this personally as I was made to pay 80 quid at Heathrow when I checked in with 32 Kgs of baggage. Indians don’t travel light, so this became a big issue. Add to this the limited number of destinations they offer in Europe and the US, and the writing’s been on the wall for ages. I’d take a bet that they will be out of Delhi as well before the year’s out. They are the lowest priced in the market today (on par with Air India) and still not getting much traffic.

[BAGoldcard]

With the high quality competition on many of the UK to India routes and between LHR and DEL / BOM in particular, it was inevitable that someone who have to withdraw.

In particular, VS current UC offering has deteriorated in recent years rather than improved (as in the case of BA Club World) and appears not to be meeting customer needs when there are great J and F products from BA, Jet and Kingfisher. The roll out of BA’s new F seat and the current process of enhancements in many on board aspects of the F product will also provide further improvements on those wishing to travel between the UK and India in style!

[globetraveller360]

What a load of rubbish that Virgin Atlantic are using the current economic crisis to pull out of Mumbai for the short period. If you have ever used the service to Mumbai then you will know that it is quite shocking for such an established airline not to have understood the Indian market. There are other airlines (Jet Airways, Air India, Kingfisher and Virgins rivals BA) who provide a much better service so i really cannot see why Virgin are not doing there best in looking after this popular route.

[aviationfan]

Jet Airways offer a better product than VS anyway and the Jet business class offering is similar and perhaps better than Virgin’s UC product but at a much more competitive price. Jet food is also very good in Biz.

[Airpocket]

I wonder who will drop flights to Bombay next…
So far, we’ve had VS,OS, and BMI.
Shame really (well, its no shame that VS have discontinued), as the other airlines provided a good counter-weight to BA who have hiked up their WTP, J, and F class rates on this route.No doubt Vintage Krug (was there ever a more pathologically slavish fan/employee of BA I wonder!)is creaming his/her underwear!
We as a company have decided to stop using BA and have switched all our staff onto other carriers as we get much better corporate deals in Y andd J class with LH, SWISS, Finnair, and KL.

[Airpocket]

VS still seems to pine for its Bombay route, even though its been discontinued.So, what do they do?They code share with Jet. Unfortunately, this is begining to have an adverse effect on Jet. Just flew into Bombay on Jet and, while the service from the cabin crew was fine (polite and professional, in contrast with the chip-on-our-shoulder,’we’re-too-sexy-to-serve-you’ service one usually experiences on VS) and there was a decent selection of newish films (The Wrestler, Milk, He’s Just Not That Into You) and an ecclectic music choice (the new Guns ‘n’ Roses album , for instance), the food portions seemed smaller in comparison to Emirates.Looks like Virgin’s minimal portions policy is creeping into Jet now! My suggestion, take a packed sandwich to see you through the lulls in the meal service.

[continentalclub]

If catering on a Jet-operated flight has been modified, then surely that will be purely a decision taken by Jet. The presence of a code-share flight number can hardly have any impact whatsoever.

My BD flights carry UA and LH flight numbers. Some of my BA flights carry CX, QF and AA numbers. I’m entirely certain that portion-control on these BD and BA services is in no way dictated by UA, LH, CX, QF or AA.

[Author]

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