A “top status” Virgin Australia passenger has unleashed on the airline after what he described as the “worst kind of customer service experience” he’s ever had.
Sydney solicitor Jahan Kalantar took to social media to “name and shame” the airline and vent about his poor experience getting a flight home from Melbourne earlier this week.
Mr Kalantar, a partner at the firm Executive Legal, said he hoped the poor publicity would make Virgin “rethink … the way they treat people”.
In a video posted to TikTok – which Mr Kalantar said went against his preference to deal with problems “quietly” – the lawyer said the bungle was particularly shocking given he was one of Virgin’s top-tier Platinum members.
“I’ve reached the top level of status (with Virgin),” he said, describing it as “the pinnacle of how you are meant to be treated” by the airline.
“And so if this is my experience as someone who, presumably, they want to keep happy I can’t even imagine what it’s like for poor people who have not got the status, don’t have the reputation, don’t have resources that I have.
“I can’t imagine what they’re going through.”
Mr Kalantar said his problems began when his flight back to Sydney from Melbourne was “bumped”. But he shrugged it off, requested an earlier flight, and the airline found him a seat.
But that flight was also cancelled, meaning Mr Kalantar was “stuck” in Melbourne overnight.
“Once again that’s life, that happens,” he said. “I’m not happy about it but that’s life.”
“Now, under law they must provide me with a hotel, accommodation, and they must provide me transport. That’s the law. It’s the minimum that they can do,” he continued.
“They say go off to this particular hotel – basically in the middle of nowhere – we’ll pay for your hotel and we’ll pay for your transfer here and transfer back.”
But when he got to the hotel, Mr Kalantar said he was told there was no money from Virgin to cover his stay, and that he would have to pay “hundreds of dollars for a very average hotel” and he would need to “chase” the airline for a reimbursement.
“Now, I’m lucky that I can afford to do so – I’m not going to do so because the principle offends me, and I’m going to make a big deal with Virgin tomorrow,” he said.
“But what about those poor people who don’t have a few hundred dollars or who don’t have a credit card, who can’t access a room because Virgin hasn’t done the right thing and because this hotel is apparently run by monkeys.”
“It’s just not good enough.”
Mr Kalantar, who prides himself on standing up for the “little guy” such as the desperately poor and people with mental illnesses, said he could not imagine what that experience would have been like for travelling families or those struggling financially.
“It’s just the worst kind of customer service experience I’ve ever had,” he said, and urged his more than 351,000 TikTok followers to get his message to the airline.
“I’ll also be filing an appropriate complaint, but I found the negative publicity unfortunately seems to be the only way to get the wheel greased.
“While it’s annoying for me, I can imagine for some people it would’ve been devastating.”
News.com.au approached Mr Kalantar to comment on his experience and what efforts have been made to address his complaints.
Virgin Australia has reportedly been in contact with Mr Kalantar since Monday, to apologise.
“As soon as we became aware of the guest’s experience via TikTok, we proactively reached out to them to apologise and remedy the situation,” a spokesperson for the airline told news.com.au in a statement.
“Unfortunately due to a technical issue with our third party hotel provider, the guest’s hotel reservation was not booked properly. Virgin Australia was unaware of this issue at the time.”
Virgin Australia has reportedly offered to refund “all expenses incurred” by Mr Kalantar.
“Virgin Australia works hard to provide our guests with a smooth and enjoyable travel experience and we are deeply disappointed that we were not able to deliver on our promise on this occasion.”