I sent a complaint to Virgin on Sunday night. I didn't think it would achieve anything, but it made me feel a bit better.

Here's what I received back:

---

Dear Guest

I write regarding a situation that arose on Saturday 04 September 2004, which
resulted in your flight being delayed. Personally and on behalf of the airline, I
would like to extend my apologies for any inconvenience you experienced. All of our
guests deserve to receive a dependable, reliable service, which we strive to
achieve, and we completely understand how frustrating it must have been waiting for
your flight.


Due to the continued expansion of Virgin Blue, a decision was made to upgrade our
I.T. system to meet the increased demand placed on the current infrastructure. This
was scheduled to take place in the early hours of Saturday morning, and by 2.30am
all preliminary tests indicated that the upgrade had been completed and the system
was fully functional.


However, at 6:30 am some problems were identified with the upgrade and
unfortunately, whilst rectifying the problems, the system was offline for
approximately two hours. This prevented us from checking in and boarding you, or
dispatching your flight and also created delays that increased throughout the day.


We make every effort to ensure that our flights depart on time but as you have
experienced first hand, there are unexpected situations which do arise which can
affect our on time performance. Virgin Blue takes great pride in our on-time
performance and almost 9 out of every 10 flights during the past month have left on
time. Indeed, our on time performance figures are available on our website for
public perusal. This however, is not an excuse. We inconvenienced you and did not
meet your expectations nor our own very high standards.


I would like to apologise once again for any inconvenience that was experienced on
Saturday. We are most grateful to you for your continued support of Virgin Blue.
We do hope that we may have the pleasure of welcoming you back on board one of our
flights soon, and we are confident that your next trip will be thoroughly enjoyable
in every respect.


Yours sincerely,

(name removed)

Head of Information Technology

Virgin Blue Airlines

---

Pff.

There are better ways to do upgrades. I think I might go Jetstar next time, even though it seems it's an airline for Bogans.