New business class for VA 737 [deferred]

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fewings85 said:
But maybe VA have different reasons/logic to our train of thought regarding the red eye/a330 usage.
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It's more likely going to come down to aircraft rotation schedules than anything else. Trascon services will have to fit around the New HKG schedule which may not make redeye flights all that possible on 330 anymore.
 
Justchecking said:
It's more likely going to come down to aircraft rotation schedules than anything else. Trascon services will have to fit around the New HKG schedule which may not make redeye flights all that possible on 330 anymore.
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That would be correct - all to do with the MEL-HGK A330 schedule and aircraft rotation, at the moment this is their MEL-HGK schedule:

blindfolddart.jpg

So I would expect that A330s on domestic transcon service will also subsequently look like this:

lotto.jpg
 
fewings85 said:
I should actually make it more clear, I wasn't actually notified with mine, I received a text message/email with a change to my flight, opened it up and all it actually was, was a change of time and all it was, was ten minutes on the departure from 11.45pm to 11.55pm. There was no mention of aircraft change, I assume that they did however change that at the same time as well.. It wasn't until I went into my booking yesterday I noticed the aircraft change as well.
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All I got was an email from them advising of a 10minute change to my arrival time on VA469 PER-BNE in November this year. No mention of it being a different aircraft type. Fortunately, too, I looked at my booking because when I logged in, one of the two "confirmed" tickets I have on that same flight had no seat allocated at all. Luckily being this far out, there were seats available and I selected one. But I think it's poor form on their part.
 
I would say that QF would be the happiest about this delay.

VA forced them to upgrade their 332 J and the introduction of a half decent VA 73H J product would have put some pressure on QF to do the same.

As long as my current VA BNE-PER flight remains a 332, I am happy with the status quo ATM...
 
I'm happy to say that might PER-BNE flight was swapped back to a 332. The staff on the 737 flight were great, but the experience on the 332 was so much better!
 
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Must...Fly! said:
Funny, I saw this thread and thought immediately to check exactly that on the VA website! :D
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I had a series of schedule changes come through this morning (17:30 -> 17:40 departure), so I went through to check no aircraft changes had also occurred.

Happily, all flights are still scheduled as 332 and my 1K seat allocations are also intact...
 
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Lie flat bed for a 5 hour flight. Aussies are so spoilt. The domestic products
here is already so good.
 
I've been checking closely. Got a BNE-PER flight coming up 22/12 and so far no change to the plane (332) lets hope it stays that way as I used one of my complimentary WP upgrades to fly J....
 
tomasp said:
I've been checking closely. Got a BNE-PER flight coming up 22/12 and so far no change to the plane (332) lets hope it stays that way as I used one of my complimentary WP upgrades to fly J....
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Must...Fly! said:
24/12 here. Stay with me VA, stay with me...
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At this stage (and time of year), it should only be unforeseen technical issues which will cause a substitution...

It is the quiet times of the year where both VA and QF are prone to cancelling/downgauging flights and a heightened level of vigilance is required.
 
Pleb Status said:
It is the quiet times of the year where both VA and QF are prone to cancelling/downgauging flights and a heightened level of vigilance is required.
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I was on a Syd - Per flight last week. The loads we very poor (I'd say early December is a bit of an off-peak prior with the holiday season about to ramp up). I was expecting the A330 to be subbed to a B737. They stuck with the A330 with well over a 100 spare seats. (Though the return flight may have been busy.)

I think that with increased B737 utilization it gets a bit more difficult to sub so easily. I also noticed that the Adelaide - Alice Springs - Darwin circuit seems to be exclusively flown by a F100. I assume this is a pretty newish thing? (never flown it myself) but a sign of the F100 venturing out of WA more probably due to B737's being utilized.
 
Bringing this back on topic.
When this was "announced" (cause it wasn't formally announced and more a conversation between AusBT and JB) Virgin Australia to launch all-new Boeing 737 business class JB was probably expecting more Asia flights by now which haven't happened. So with the A330's continuing for the foreseeable why upgrade aircraft now, when it can wait (and pushed into a different financial accounting period). It's all a little bit of preemptive news. I'd imagine they will announce additional Asia services they will announce their plans with the East - West Coast services .. The seat selection etc is probably all done and pending the push of the "go" button. Also, it will probably get done during the quieter travelling months to ensure capacity. At this rate it probably makes sense to wait for the B737MAX and leave the current fleet "as is".
 
Pleb Status said:
At this stage (and time of year), it should only be unforeseen technical issues which will cause a substitution...

It is the quiet times of the year where both VA and QF are prone to cancelling/downgauging flights and a heightened level of vigilance is required.
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I was worried because when I last looked they were still selling getaway fares and had a crazy amount of award seats available. Checked again and looks like load has improved, so less worried. Just looking forward to trying the A330 for the first time since the refurbishment, and compare to Qantas.
 
Bagpuss said:
At this rate it probably makes sense to wait for the B737MAX and leave the current fleet "as is".
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I completely agree.

But it's not the first time a senior VA exec has stuck their head up with some attention grabbing news, that is not exactly inconsequential. Then in the end it turns out to be "fake news"! Perhaps they ought to reign it in a bit. Some would see it as free publicity, but keep repeating and I start to see it like the boy who cried wolf.
 
Etihad are soon to be disposing of their A330s - wonder if VA might acquire a few for SE Asian routes (aged 10-12 years)??
 
docjames said:
Etihad are soon to be disposing of their A330s - wonder if VA might acquire a few for SE Asian routes (aged 10-12 years)??
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Nice idea. But I think anyone at VA who suggests obtaining used A330s from the UAE again will be directed to the nearest exit!!
 
docjames said:
Etihad are soon to be disposing of their A330s - wonder if VA might acquire a few for SE Asian routes (aged 10-12 years)??
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I think the strategy will be to introduce and then gradually replace the A330's and B777's with more of a single fleet type IE A350 or B787 (though may not be a single variant).
Whilst they wouldn't use them for "dedicated" domestic runs they could do similar to Qantas and go PER > BNE/SYD/MEL > LAX/ASIA > BNE/SYD/MEL > PER with just a single airframe doing the domestic route each day with the rest B737.

Qantas themselves first expected to use the B787's domestically but seem to be moving away from that direction and using the aircraft domestically as part of an international routing.

Though it's all easy to jump the gun, the aircraft and routes need to prove themselves first which is Qantas' stance.
 
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