12th November evening, Virgin Atlantic suddenly cancels the last flight New York - London, and I am amongst those stranded at JFK-4. It seems there is some sort of work to rule by their cabib crew on layover issues or something because of which they report sick, whatever, the VS staff at JFK are worse than anything we can dream up in India, for all their much-vaunted ad campaigns. Over 20 VS counter staff sit around doing nothing while just 2 are handling around 200-250 impacted passengers.

So eventually I reach the front of the line and am told that, sorry, in my class of travel, the only option is to come back for the Monday morning flight. Check in for which starts at 03:30. That's it, no hotel, no alternate.

I am too tired to argue, shall return to fight this another day, and stroll across to Air India, who have (luckily!!) their evening JFK-LHR-DEL-BOM flight delayed by about 6 hours, buy a one-way ticket, get a very reasonable price, swipe, and get along with this sector of my journey. Air India is Air India, Kalinga is an aircraft that has seen better days and the cabin crew is up to its usual moans and groans. The whole galley erupts when we land, since the carts don't lock properly, to give you an example.

However, wrt VS, when I board AI-112, I discover that VS have transferred/endorsed many passengers to the same AI flight.

Why did VS/JFK get tough with me? Because I was on discounted PE class, non refund, non endorsable etcetc.

Why did the others get on board? Beats me, maybe they are all flying full fare!!

I can't wait for 9W to get into USA any point of entry. Will be great to have options other than AI, BA and VS for via London trips to North America. With any luck, tonight should be my last flight on VS, LHR-DEL, in a few hours. I have had enough of their snooty attitude.

Incidentally, before that, I had flown DEL-LHR and LHR-SFO on VS, and the difference in service to passengers has to be seen to be believed.