singapore hotel: Report card: Virgin Australia business class

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Travellers seem to agree. The latest Roy Morgan Air Travel Survey reports that 31 per cent of domestic business travellers took their most recent flight with Virgin, while the same response for Qantas was down to 56 per cent.

But just how does the reinvented Virgin Australia stack up? Here’s my subjective report card rating the airline across four key areas for business traveller.

Business class

Our mark: B-

Virgin Australia’s domestic business class shows the airline is serious about chasing the corporate traveller.

For the most part there are no surprises: wide, comfortable seats and quality meals served at the pointy of its Boeing 737-800 jets, although without the video screens and USB sockets of Qantas business class.

It’s on the east-west routes where Virgin stands out by offering international-grade seats that convert into an angled lie-flat bed.

That not only puts Virgin clearly ahead of Qantas on these routes, it’s something US airlines are only now catching up to for their own New York/Los Angeles services.

Qantas intends to leapfrog Virgin Australia with the debut of its stunning Business Suites on the long transcontinental trek, but don’t expect Virgin Australia to sit idly by.

In fact, if Virgin does releases a next-generation business class seat, it’s desperately needed on the airline’s Boeing 777 flights to the US.

Lounges

Our mark: B-

Virgin’s makeover of its airport lounges has been nothing short of spectacular, especially the Melbourne and Brisbane lounges. Melbourne in particular now seems more of a flagship lounge than even Sydney.

Sydney’s fast-track ‘premium entry’ facility that lets passengers go straight from kerb to lounge through a private check-in zone is a boon to busy business travellers.

Melbourne is set to gain its own take on this – in the form of a ‘premium exit’ directly to the boarding gates – next month.

Unfortunately, the lounge’s food offerings are uninspiring and rarely seem to change.

Frequent flyer scheme

Our mark: B

Virgin Australia’s Velocity frequent flyer program may not boast the 10 million members of the Qantas loyalty scheme, but it beats the Red Roo in several areas.

That includes ‘family pooling’ for sharing points and status credits among family members, annual upgrade certificates for Platinum frequent flyers, and reciprocal membership in Hilton and IHG hotel loyalty schemes.

What needs improving? Making it easier to request upgrades and book points-based award seats online instead of dialling a call centre.

Network

Our mark: C+

Virgin has stitched together a series of bespoke partnerships, from cornerstone investors such as Air New Zealand, Etihad and Singapore Airlines through to Delta, Virgin America and Airberlin.

But it’s still rather patchwork and often inconsistent for recognition of frequent flyer status, compared to the structured benefits of a formal airline family such as Star Alliance.

Overall

Our mark: B

That’s a solid result, especially when the old Virgin Blue would barely have rated at all.

How do you rate Virgin Australia for business travel?

David Flynn is a business travel expert and editor of Australian Business Traveller.

Follow AusBT on Twitter.

48 comments so far

So Qantas doesnt have lie flat beds on its East West flights? Wow what was I sleeping on the other night, it was flat it was comfortable and it was going west, gee wilikers I must have been dreaming I was so comfy.
Get your facts right if you are going to bag the competition, they are called Skybeds and they are in the Airbus A330 series doing that flying.

Commenter
BS

Location

Date and time

June 04, 2014, 8:15AM
- Qantas has two types of A330s – domestic and international. The domestics have normal business-style seats, similar to Sydney-Melbourne or premium economy – they recline a bit and that’s that.
  
  The internationals have the Skybed I business class seat which is an angled bed – you sleep on a slope, not lying fully flat (unlike the Skybed II in the A380s for example).
  
  Qantas can sometimes roster an international A330 onto east-west instead of a domestic A330, which is when travellers get that better seat. But it’s not a regular thing.
  
  Commenter
  David Flynn
  
  Location
  
  High Flyer
  
  Date and time
  
  June 04, 2014, 9:04AM
- Gee wilikers! You were lucky enough to get a random one off international Qantas A330. It seems someone needs to get some facts about the Qantas fleet.
  
  Commenter
  cj
  
  Location
  
  Sydney
  
  Date and time
  
  June 04, 2014, 11:25AM
- It was written as if Qantas has none of this type of aircraft seating at all! Especially flying east/west domestically. How many do virgin have in their fleet?
  
  Commenter
  BS
  
  Location
  
  Date and time
  
  June 04, 2014, 12:01PM

I agree with the assessment in terms of what has been assessed, but where I believe Virgin has it all over Qantas is the interaction with their staff. Virgin staff are vastly friendlier, more helpful, more cheerful and provide an overall better quality of service. For that they get an A+.

Commenter
DavidF

Location

Melburne

Date and time

June 04, 2014, 8:22AM
- Abso-bloody-lutely!
  
  Commenter
  Jackson
  
  Location
  
  South Yarra
  
  Date and time
  
  June 04, 2014, 11:43AM
- I travel every week mostly Qantas out and Virgin back
  
  From QF I get less than half the points of V and when I use the points, QF is almost double the fee of V. I have no trouble booking on line with either
  
  I disagree with the comment about the food, V has it all over QF in my opinion
  
  The staff in the V CBR lounge are fantastic. The QF lounges I visit are relatively new but, toilets dont work for weeks, PCs are often out of order and in Melbourne this week there was a massive crack in the work island – something I noticed on my two hour delay
  
  Commenter
  Good Enough For Me
  
  Location
  
  Mostly airbourne
  
  Date and time
  
  June 04, 2014, 2:28PM

B- + B- + B + C+ cant equal a B

Commenter
davem

Location

sydney

Date and time

June 04, 2014, 8:23AM
- Splitting hairs?
  
  Commenter
  bf
  
  Location
  
  sydney
  
  Date and time
  
  June 04, 2014, 9:16AM
- HAHA TOUCHE!
  
  Commenter
  matt
  
  Location
  
  melbourne
  
  Date and time
  
  June 04, 2014, 9:39AM