Virgin Blue computer glitch delays flights around Australia

[Adam.S]

What if these passengers book an expensive penthouse suite at a hotel??
......I doubt any airline would compensate that kind of price?

I assume there is restrictions/guidelines for this procedure?

[Nathan Bartlett]

In Roberts's post it says up to $220, which is not too bad.

[Radi K]

To suggest that VB asked guests to pay for their own accom is false.

VB never has asked guests to pay for their own accom. Not sure why comments like these are coming out or from who but it did not happen like this.

YQA did another BNE/SYD/BNE rotation today too.

Zero Cancelled Flights today too.

[Grant Smith]

Originally Posted by Radi K

VB never has asked guests to pay for their own accom. Not sure why comments like these are coming out or from who but it did not happen like this.

Indeed, IIRC don't they contract this kind of thing to some company called 'Nationwide Hospitality' or something similar?

[Brad Myer]

The system crashed again this morning at 5:00am, it was fixed soon after only resulting in a "few" delays.

[Adam.S]

Originally Posted by Radi K

YQA did another BNE/SYD/BNE rotation today too.

I was at BNE yesterday afternoon and VH-YQB was boarding at the Virgin terminal approx 17:15pm.
Would this be the flights suggested or was it a charter of some sort?
(Passengers were boarding in drabs periodically, as was luggage being loaded)

A few photos of the aircraft here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2951328...7624932919297/

[Robert S]

Originally Posted by Brad Myer

The system crashed again this morning at 5:00am, it was fixed soon after only resulting in a "few" delays.

According to their media release:

The Virgin Blue Group of Airlines this morning experienced a slowdown of its network at the start of the day which caused some consequential delays.

We apologise to our Guests for any delay or inconvenience they experienced. We have experienced some delays of up to two hours at Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne Airports. These delays will be recovered by the close of business today.

Two flights were cancelled this morning due to two separate engineering issues and we have re-accommodated those guests on other services, which have since departed.

[Robert S]

Originally Posted by Andrew

Radi - on SUN in MEL, DJ staff were advising 'guests' whose flights were cancelled to come back tomorrow. They were advising to pay for your accommodation and Virgin would reimbursed you with 'Virgin dollars'...

I'm still not buying this - it simply sounds like confusion over what was being offered, and it literally comes from the heat of the moment, where it's equally possible that someone said the wrong thing, or what was said was not understood correctly or a combination of both.

The reports have been that customers delayed over four hours will get flight credits and that those stuck overnight away from their home cities can additionally claim expenses up to $220/night for accomodation, plus transport to/from the airport. This sounds a whole lot more plausible than what you're suggesting.

[Robert S]

Originally Posted by Andrew

Robert - that was the information (they) received at that time by the agent and there was more then one person in the group of three who understood it - there is no reason for them to say otherwise. This information drove their decision on what action to take next which equated to a switch of airlines in-order to fly that day.

I'm not disputing that that was the message they received, but if this turns out to be a true representation of VB's approach, it will come out and the media will be all over it like a pack of wolves.

It quite simply is not consistant with VB's various public comments and media releases, which I choose to place more weight on, over a report of an incident in an airport in the thick of it.

[Radi K]

I can't obviously vouch for the information they got but I can tell you that VB policy is for that not to occur but I do very much doubt this happened. I have seen the statistics about guests being put in hotels in all ports and I don't believe any of these people were expected to pay out of their own pocket.

Every hotel requires a credit card inprint for incidentals but that is normal.

VB has an account with nationwide and they now take care of booking hotels/transport etc.

Another Strategic Charter today, YQA BNE-SYD-BNE DJ986/999
Alliance FKA did BNE-TSV-BNE-MKY-BNE