TRAVEL : Holiday types

Dear Mr Branson...

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

"Look at this Richard. Just look at it"

"It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing. That's how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this."

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Is this the funniest passenger complaint letter ever? It was written to Richard Branson, the boss of Virgin Airways, and is quickly becoming an internet hit. Here it is in full (spelling mistakes included):

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don't get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it's next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That's got to be the clue hasn't it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

I know it looks like a baaji but it's in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you'll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It's only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what's on offer.

I'll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it's Christmas morning and you're sat their with your final present to open. It's a big one, and you know what it is. It's that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it's not in there. It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing. That's how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this: .

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It's mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it's baffling presentation: .

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn't want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it's just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson's face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel: .

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I'd had enough. I was the hungriest I'd been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It's another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I'd done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn't eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can't imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It's just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it's knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincererly

XXXX

Virgin lost no time in responding, announcing in a comment on this article that Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter personally. "Make no mistake, we take all complaints seriously and will try and learn from each one," said Paul Charles, Virgin's Director of Corporate Communications.

"Richard was absolutely right to call the guy who complained and chat it through with him. It was a witty letter and, while we may not agree with all of it, we're not proud of ourselves if someone's disappointed with something on board."

"We look forward to welcoming the complainant on a flight again soon and, in fact, we've invited him to come and help select the next range of meals and wines we serve on board so that he can add his personal touch on behalf of all of our customers,"

User comments

i travelled several times to south america ,to do this you have a choice of 3 airlines AA all the way,Qantas to NZ then you transfer to LAN CHILE as great a service as you could recieve i travelled both coach{cattle class} andbusiness class with LAN it was top shelf everytime and the food should be the industry standard ,the staff were very well presented and very helpfull allways did thier jobs well and were allways polite{far more than i would have been in some circumstances} in all situations ,i'd reccomend LAN allways. E R Whitten

Reminds me of a meal fiasco I had on a Korean Air flight from Incheon to Brisbane. I had the option of beef wellington or a Korean meal. Not one for culinary experiments on flights, I went for the beef wellington. After half an hour, (I was reading and had lost track of time) a flight attendant approached me and asked why I wasn't eating. I told her I was waiting on my beef wellington. She went to check on it for me, and after a few minutes, returned and told me they'd run out. So I had the Korean meal. I could had no idea what it was, so couldn't bring myself to eat it! The next morning, I had the choice of omlette or porridge. I went for the porridge. It turned out to be some gluggy rice thing with little brown things I couldn't identify. So I had three little squares of some kind of fruit and an azuki bean cake. When my parents picked me up from the airport, I demanded to be taken directly to McDonalds!

TO the person who wrote this letter good on you for showing us what they give us to eat on planes its a case of ive got your money for your ticket heres your food which in these pictures it looks like the food was scraped out of the bin . well richard its time to spend a bit of time and money feeding your passengers and running your airline in a humaine way. cause i would like to see you sit down and eat this food.

VERY funny letter, however I would not fly with any other airline than Virgin. That other one beginning with the thirteenth letter of the alphabet is worse than useless. At least Virgin flights are bang on time and the planes are clean and well maintained. My advice is to eat before you board if you don't like the food served and take lots of fruit to eat inflight - plus several good books etc. Well done Richard - despite the mustard and stuff!

I can only imagine the traveller complaining about Virgin Atlantic food is English.. I have watched hordes of English tourists order fish and chips in France. McDonalds in Italy Hash browns and eggs in Greece Sausages and mash in Bangkok and Baked beans in Barcelona. I think the Virgin food was probably beyonf his comprehension.

god many of times i have picked through food on a flight to find something that i might eat ........i mean if you were hungry enough you would eat anything!dont blame one airline when all of them are to blame .As long as the service of the staff is good and damn plane lands without falling from the sky i would be pretty happy with that.Yes it would be nice to have a lamb roast like your mother cooks but then i wonder would the complanant pay extra to get better food?

I am sitting here and reading this letter which cracks me up, I could not stop laughing. But, seriously the Pic of the food look disgusting and everything looks the same except of course for the "Crime Cookie" Everyone had food on flights not to their standards. But, you get what you pay for or not.

I have run my own business for 20 years now and can promise everyone that mistakes will always be made. Sometimes even the "mother-of-all-mistakes" will happen. It's not the mistakes and the bad service that is important but HOW YOU DEAL WITH THEM that matters. Knowing Richard Branson, I think the the client is happy and some caterer has had his *** kicked.

My experience with Virgin Atlantic food service has been fine particularly when compared with the airline whose name starts with the 17th letter of the alphabet. I go to restaurants for food and airlines for flying. I mean, how high can a soufle fly?

I think you really get what you pay for, however being a travel agent I know Virgin branded airlines, are one of the best out there compared to some others. So what if this guy is taking the *** a little, if he gets his message across then he is doing us all a favour! To Azza though Jetstar and Virgin Blue are low cost carriers, however Qantas are note. If anyone is to complain about *** service, overpriced fares, flights being cancelled etc, my first complaint would be to QF!