Travel agents are “absolutely essential” to the future success of Virgin Atlantic, the airline’s operations chief has said as he offered his apologies for refund delays.
Speaking to TTG during a tour of new onboard health and hygiene protocols, chief customer and operating officer Corneel Koster thanked travel consultants for their “support, cooperation and patience” amid the Covid crisis.
“Any information you need from us [around health and safety] to convince your customers to travel then we can provide it and we will be right here with you,” he said.
“I know it’s been a difficult time and if we’ve kept you or your customers waiting for things like refunds I do apologise. I thank you for your confidence in us.
“We’ve switched on an auto GDS refunds system [and] we’re getting into a better place but we couldn’t have done it without you.”
Koster added that Virgin’s recently announced £1.2 billion recapitalisation deal would help the carrier “rebuild our balance sheet to increase flying and do so confidently with an eye on the future”.