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.

 

[n7of9]

50% of your status credits need to come from VA flights...oh but also, we don't fly anywhere useful, kthx

 

[HS-TQE]

50% of your status credits need to come from VA flights...oh but also, we don't fly anywhere useful

Also to repeat a devil's advocate post I've stated elsewhere, it could be translated that;

"Oh you want us to exit (long haul) international, fine. However, we're now a primary Domestic and International Leisure* 'Value' Airline*, that is no longer competing head on with Qantas"
"Therefore 50% of the flying must be from our Domestic and/or Short International network to gain SCs."

"No no.. not like that!"

It is a risky move for VA/Velocity alienating their primary long haul international codeshare customers that rarely steps foot on a VA operated aircraft, but if Bain wants to exit those international codeshare customers (even if they've previously used VA heavily in the past to gain said status with VA) from Velocity, then that's their perogative.

*Short Haul International Leisure subsidiary that flies to Bali, Fiji, Queenstown, Vanuatu and Apia.

 

[jase05]

50% of your status credits need to come from VA flights...oh but also, we don't fly anywhere useful, kthx

There would be plenty of VA elite status folk who travel mainly domestically and fly VA.
Been plenty of years where both myself and my wife have easily made Platinum purely flying VA domestic

 

[PERLHR]

There would be plenty of VA elite status folk who travel mainly domestically and fly VA.
Been plenty of years where both myself and my wife have easily made Platinum purely flying VA domestic

That though was probably easy enough with what 55 credits to 110 coast to coast and also more when doing connections. Wonder just how easy it is under the "new enhanced" system to achieve the same. Highly unlikely for most I suspect!

 

[Denali]

They eventually had the best J seats/cabin out there and I enjoyed them a few times so its sad to see the decline/availability. Im not looking forward to next months SQ flight with the stupid side angle footwell

 

[Ansett Nostalgic]

The sad part was the VA J product on the HKG service was miles ahead of what QF and CX offered

 

[Stuser]

6 hours Sydney to Denpasar on a domestic 737 is excruciating. Never again.

I finally “achieved” Velocity Platinum in January this year, just in time to see reduced status credit earn on international partners that use actual long haul aeroplanes…

Added to that the need to fly VA flights for 50% to maintain status, where the codeshare on say Singapore airlines, is way more expensive than buying direct with the airline…. Who’s gonna pay for these flights?

Virgin / velocity not looking like a good option for overseas travel moving forward….

 

[zainman]

I flew VA MEL/DPS and MEL/HKG. I thought the A330 was decent. Sadly never got to fly the 777.

I hope QR can spare some more aircraft and VA can provide some competition to QF on other routes as well (not just to Europe/MENA etc)

 

[Bewildered]

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.

Actually it was the reverse, JWI was the common terminology used in head office - JWI = “John wants it” and it trumped business cases, risk analysis, common sense and anything else you can think of.

JB threatened to sack anyone who disagreed with him.

 

[Saab34]

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.

Amazing how a board could keep someone in the job who not only orders stupidly high priced aircraft but later in his tenure parks a whole of them. No financial accountability from the board. Hundreds of millions down the drain, and they just continued on. He should have been knifed long ago.

Virgin was heading for administration regardless.

 

[HS-TQE]

Amazing how a board could keep someone in the job who not only orders stupidly high priced aircraft but later in his tenure parks a whole of them. No financial accountability from the board. Hundreds of millions down the drain, and they just continued on. He should have been knifed long ago.

Virgin was heading for administration regardless.

Well NZ's then CEO Luxon did attempt a "leadership spill" however Borghetti had the support of his BFF Hogan of Etihad along with Singapore Airlines which put an end to that.

Luxon quit the VA board and NZ subsequently selling up most of their stake to Nanshan following that failed attempt.

EDIT: Saying that I agree, but a lot of middle management and the other primary stakeholders (EY and SQ) played a major role in driving VA 1.0 into the ground financially. They rubber stamped.every one of their decisions instead of keeping management in check.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

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.

In my mind, long haul is anything with twin-aisle aircraft. You won't convince me otherwise.

Just like, New Zealand and Indonesia don't count as 'international travel'.

 

[Lockyer Man]

I’m still wondering how Virgin can call themselves a full service airline when they have no international lounges, all people get in economy is a drink of water, tea or coffee unless they pay. Even the food in J is now nothing much more than a poor representation of food as evidenced on my two recent trips to/from Adelaide and to/from Sydney. Seems like their capital is reducing yet again and they are cutting corners on their service.

I agree with the majority re the changes to the frequent flyer programme. The airline must be wanting to lose customers rather than gaining them. Or is it a way of cutting the cost of all the passengers that can use the lounge now so that it can sort of become a welcome place rather than a den of mess that has every cat and his dog able to get it. (Said tongue in cheek of course).