Article: The Sad History of Virgin Australia’s Long-Haul Network

[AFF Editor]

The Sad History of Virgin Australia’s Long-Haul Network is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

The Sad History of Virgin Australia's Long-Haul Network

Virgin is retiring its entire long-haul fleet and won't resume flights to Los Angeles or Tokyo for at least several years.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[AIRwin]

 

[HS-TQE]

I wouldn't consider Bali and coughet as "Long Haul International", they were considered as Short Haul International internally by Virgin Blue (and later Virgin Australia).

IATA may consider 6 hours as "long haul", but they were really "Medium Haul" at best with 7.5hrs being the extremes of Medium Haul.

Long Haul IMO would be 8 hours to 16 hours, with 16 hours+ (using IATA definition) as Ultra Long Haul.

 

[ozstamps]

A complete list of Virgin Australia long-haul routes​

To sum up, here’s a complete history of all changes to Virgin Australia’s long-haul and Southeast Asian network until now:

• February 2025: Cairns-Tokyo cancelled
• April 2024: Adelaide-Denpasar suspended
• June 2023: Cairns-Tokyo launched
• March 2023: Gold Coast-Denpasar launched
• December 2022: Adelaide-Denpasar relaunched
• June 2022: Flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Denpasar resume
• Late March 2020: Sydney-Los Angeles, Brisbane-Los Angeles, Melbourne-Los Angeles suspended; planned launches of Brisbane-Tokyo & Melbourne-Denpasar cancelled
• Early March 2020: Sydney-Hong Kong cancelled
• Feb 2020 – Melbourne-Hong Kong cancelled
• April 2019 – Seasonal Darwin-Denpasar route operates for six months and does not return
• July 2018 – Sydney-Hong Kong launched
• July 2017 – Melbourne-Hong Kong launched
• June 2017 – Perth-Abu Dhabi flights were supposed to launch, but the route was axed before the first flight departed (Etihad also withdrew from the Perth-Abu Dhabi route in October 2018)
• April 2017 – Melbourne-Los Angeles reinstated
• February 2017 – Sydney-Abu Dhabi cancelled
• January 2017 – Tigerair gets banned from operating to Indonesia and permanently axes all flights to Denpasar the following month
• March 2016 – Perth-Denpasar, Adelaide-Denpasar and Melbourne-Denpasar cancelled with routes given to Tigerair
• January 2016 – Perth-coughet cancelled
• April 2015 – Port Hedland-Denpasar launched
• October 2014 – Melbourne-Los Angeles cancelled
• December 2013 – Sydney-Denpasar and Melbourne-Denpasar launched
• February 2011 – Sydney-Abu Dhabi launched (V Australia); Melbourne-Johannesburg, Melbourne-coughet and Brisbane-coughet cancelled
• March 2010 – Melbourne-Johannesburg launched (V Australia)
• December 2009 – Melbourne-coughet launched (V Australia)
• November 2009 – Brisbane-coughet (V Australia) and Perth-coughet (Pacific Blue) launched
• September 2009 – Melbourne-Los Angeles launched (V Australia)
• April 2009 – Brisbane-Los Angeles launched (V Australia)
• February 2009 – Sydney-Los Angeles launched (under V Australia brand)
• December 2008 – Adelaide-Denpasar, Brisbane-Denpasar and Perth-Denpasar launched (under Pacific Blue brand)

A pretty sad and sorry tale of ambition vastly exceeding capability, and fleet, and demand.

And now losing large swathes of long rusted on loyal flyers starting now, after heavily screwing with the Velocity program. Dumber than dirt.

With an IPO in the wings, actively herding gobs of passengers over to Jetstar and Qantas defies logic, and any common sense and any business sense. Made them ZERO extra bucks, but have lost, and will lose, them heaps. Messing with NOTHING dear to the loyal clients was the sane game in IPO year. Buyers want stability and loyalty.

And at this time, appointing another AMERICAN to run things, is tone-deaf to the mood locally.

 

[Saab34]

Having RRP lease rates for the A330 fleet didn’t help.

Hong Kong was about a decade too late. Twice a day was needed for it to become the slightest bit competitive. It was quite disturbing when they went into administration and the figures they quoted around this one route which apparently burnt, I recall it was $150m. You can see why they pulled out of those plans to expand into China.

 

[henrus]

I wouldn't consider Bali and coughet as "Long Haul International", they were considered as Short Haul International internally by Virgin Blue (and later Virgin Australia).

coughet was operated by the 777 as V Australia so I guess could have been considered long haul as V Australia was the "long haul" airline.

Whilst not long haul the A330s occasionally popped up on the PER routes, once in a blue moon on the SYD-MEL route and then during the holidays on routes to NAN.

 

[HS-TQE]

Having RRP lease rates for the A330 fleet didn’t help.

Hong Kong was about a decade too late. Twice a day was needed for it to become the slightest bit competitive. It was quite disturbing when they went into administration and the figures they quoted around this one route which apparently burnt, I recall it was $150m. You can see why they pulled out of those plans to expand into China.

The regional ATR operation had a similar very expensive lease rate (almost the same as the 737 rather than cheaper) to the A330s. Both Borghetti era failures had a "I want those a/c now!" feel to it by middle management backed by the CEO and the board without doing due diligence on the lease rates.