Special dietary requirements on Virgin in domestic business class?

Special dietary requirements on Virgin in domestic business class?

Does any one kow if Virgin is catering for special dietary requirements (i.e. gluten free) for passangers in domestic business class? The booking system doesn't allow anything like this and the call centre only told me they will make a note on my reservations. Doesn't sound too convincing.

This has been a complaint of mine for a while with the domestic business class. There is no guarantee that any dietary requirements will be catered for. My wife was fortunate last time we flew that there was a GF salad available. Despite requesting in advance via the call centre, I reckon this was luck more than planning as it was not loaded specifically for her, as you may expect with other airlines (it was also the vegetarian option for the flight).

The general advice I was given was that 'you can order from the economy menu'. Not an attractive opion if you've paid for a business fare.....

I would imagine this is something VA will be looking to improve on soon, but that probably doesn't help you in the short term.

Thanks 444desiro.

Your answer is clerly what I was afraid of. This is a flight for my fiance so I will tell her not to expect catering. Pretty bad for business class... I expect Virgin to improve this soon, there are many travellers out there with special dietary requirements and they should cater for them in domestic at least in business class considering the price we are paying.

Don't get me started :-)

I know people will argue that you know what you're getting when you book, but it's not made very clear.

Maybe you can argue on a short flight (MEL-SYD) it's not essential and that a glass of wines & cookie will suffice, but I wouldn't now fly to Perth for example and risk that my wife can't have anything to eat!

One thing I will say though, is that the VA cabin crew were excellent. They talked through what items were available from the economy and the business menu. The Byron Bay cookies are GF and although they came from the economy trolley, the stewardess prepared and served them as the 'dessert option' with my wifes meal, which I thought was a really nice gesture. (I enjoyed the chocolate cupcake, however!!) 

There's no official policy, if you can't eat what they have, take your own. It's probably issue #45645 that VA's working on right now. 

My recent experience on a Perth-Sydney VA flight was that special meals could not be booked/chosen online. In Economy, they were not even an option that could be arranged by calling customer service centre. So you have to try your luck on board. I got lucky that there was a yummy suitable meal for me on the economy menu. My luck will run out, but no matter... will not be flying VA much in future.