VA inaugural flight to AYQ (From MEL and BNE)

[Ade]

Hello AFF'ers,

I was lucky enough to be on the inaugural MEL-AYQ VA1681 on 06JUN24. Lucky is exactly how I would describe how I got to be on this service.

Recently someone from OMAAT posted an article on FB about their experience being on an inaugural service (SQ I think, but I forget). I read that article and I was very interested because I always wanted to be on an inaugural service, but never got to do it. Either I did not know about it or I knew about it, but could not do it or I knew about it, booked to do it, but later got called into work and had to miss it (QF A220 CBR-MEL comes to mind)

Anyways, a couple of days after reading this OMAAT article, I saw a feed from VA on my FB page that the inaugural flight to AYQ from MEL (06 Jun) and BNE (07 Jun). I thought to myself if I don't do this now, I might not do it again. I was initially going to do CBR-MEL-CBR on QF CR and then do MEL-AYQ-MEL on commercial VA, but later realised that the fare difference between MEL-AYQ-MEL and tagging CBR at both ends is small (approx $30 or so). So I jumped on VA website and booked CBR-MEL-AYQ with same day return (AYQ-MEL-CBR).

As my luck would have it, the FB post from VA landed in my FB feed one day after VA TSC promo ended. Had I got this feed one day earlier, I would have got TSC for these flights, but now it's just SC. Ces't la vie!

As I finished the booking, I noticed on the VA app that there was an option to bid for an upgrade. Now, I have never submitted a bid before. So I took this opportunity and put in $200 as bid for MEL-AYQ sector. Early morning today around 0300h, I got the bid success email. So I will be flying CBR-MEL(Y)-AYQ(J)-MEL-CBR(Y). The loadings last night before I went to bed was at least 3 seats available in J, so I'm now thinking if I had submitted the minimum bid of $120 would it have been successful?

Will add more details and pics as I go.

 

[AIRwin]

Recently someone from OMAAT posted an article on FB about their experience being on an inaugural service (SQ I think, but I forget). I read that article and I was very interested because I always wanted to be on an inaugural service, but never got to do it. Either I did not know about it or I knew about it, but could not do it or I knew about it, booked to do it, but later got called into work and had to miss it (QF A220 CBR-MEL comes to mind)

I'm in a similar situation having to cancel my booking on the BNE inaugural tomorrow

 

[Ade]

I'm in a similar situation having to cancel my booking on the BNE inaugural tomorrow

So you are cancelling your ticket on the inaugural service or cancel an existing ticket to be on the inaugural service ex-BNE?

 

[AIRwin]

So you are cancelling your ticket on the inaugural service or cancel an existing ticket to be on the inaugural service ex-BNE?

I've cancelled my booking on the inaugural flight but looking forward to seeing your pics!

 

[Ade]

CBR-MEL (Y) on VA256 0750h service.

Just another VA service, nothing flashy. Good crew. FA (Cat) was very good. At check-in I asked I could be moved to a window seat for the MEL-AYQ sector, so that chances are I might see the Uluru as we come to land. Again, this is under the assumption that Uluru is visible from my side of the cabin. Was told that the J cabin is full and no window seats available.

At the lounge I asked if I can be moved to a YX seat for the CBR-MEL leg - was told that they had to check with their supervisor and only middle seats were available. I said No because I'm not a huge fan on the middle seat. And I did not have a shadow as well. It was an almost full flight.



Had some fruits and yogurt in the lounge.



Crew served water after seat belt sign turned off. I got a cheeky cup of water.

 

[Ade]

I had great flights yesterday on the inaugural service to AYQ and back. I will update this thread with my notes and pictures in the coming days. At CBR today and got a lot of stuff going on at work, so not able to get to updating this thread as quickly I thought I'd be able to.

 

[kookaburra75]

I had great flights yesterday on the inaugural service to AYQ and back. I will update this thread with my notes and pictures in the coming days. At CBR today and got a lot of stuff going on at work, so not able to get to updating this thread as quickly I thought I'd be able to.

Looking forward to the photos - and to think I only bumped into you a couple of days ago too. I spent several years in the 80s in Alice Springs working as a surveyor, and quite a bit of time in and around Uluru. It's an amazing place.

 

[Ade]

and to think I only bumped into you a couple of days ago too.

It was nice to bump into you too @kookaburra75 . Since then I have *not worked* for only 9 or so hours. Work is super busy! But I'm on the CBR-MEL today to spend weekend at a mates place (a much needed and well-timed break)- if only QF could take me there. Was originally booked to be on the first one to MEL at 0605h, but was cancelled and moved 4 times finally departing 1040h. But hey that gives me time to update this thread. So more updates coming shortly!

 

[Ade]

Following the nothing to write about CBR-MEL in Y, it was time for me to try the MEL-AYQ in J. Arrived at the VA lounge in MEL and enquired if there are any special events planned for the inaugural flight to AYQ. The lounge staff did not have a great idea, but said there will be something.

At this point, I saw the post from @marcojim about the setup done at Gate 5 for the inaugural flight. I went down to the gate and took some pics. I spoke to one of the organisers at the gate and asked more about the events planned. Was told that there is going to be songs performed by an aboriginal artist, Mitch Tambo and quick talks by the Libby Minogue, Chief Marketing Officer VA, MEL airport manager and other dignitaries - I did not catch everyones names. There was a First Nations DJ performing.




I went back to the lounge to catch up on some work - had some meetings etc and then came back around 1100h almost around the same time the events commenced.

Loved the songs sung by Mitch Tambo. He sang 2 songs, but I only recoded one. The one that I recorded was the aboriginal version of the Great Southern Land. It was very nice

The lounge staff, crew on board and other VA folks at the gate were pleasantly surprised when I told them I'm only flying to be on this inaugural service. I'm not staying at AYQ and I will be flying back on their return flight (VA1682) same day with the same crew.

Images and more details from the VA Pressroom here

 

[Ade]

Onboard VA1681 MEL-AYQ J

I asked at the lounge and at the gate if there is any chance for me to get a window seat - so that I can see the Rock and the NT landscape. But was told that flight is super full and not possible to move seats. I was ok with this.

At the gate after the festivities were over, I asked if it is possible to get a paper BP printed out - sort of a souvenir. The gate agent was more than happy to do that. I also enquired if it was possible for them to print a message on the BP to the effect that this was the inaugural flight and was told that there is not enough real estate on the BP to print such messages.

We are flying on VH-YIA


As always great service by the crew. CSM Sophie took care of the J cabin. Every now and then FA Sarah pitched in to grab a few things from the front galley and was fun to chat with. As mentioned earlier, Sarah and Sophie could not believe that I'm flying simply because. The staff seemed genuinely happy to be at work, especially given the inaugural service.

Once all pax boarded and before the door were closed, Mitch Tambo came onboard and performed all along the aisle with the didgeridoo. I believe this had a cultural significance. To me it felt like doing a traditional thing before starting something new and the general feeling on board was simply superb. Was lucky to be on this flight, I should say.



Was offered Sparkling White or Water as PDB. Went with Sparkling. Was seated next to a lovely person (1F) who is flying to AYQ to participate in an art program. We had a nice time chatting during the flight. 1F also offered to swap seats with me so that I can see the Uluru rock or she is happy to take pictures for me. I gave her my phone and she took some pics. She also sent me some pics from her phone. 1F was super friendly and I hope she is having fun at the art program.



Anyways, back to the service. Once seat belt sign was switched off, CSM came to take drink and meal orders. I was lucky they had loaded veg options for this flight. I was at the gate the whole time for the festivities, and missed out eating at the lounge. I usually eat beforehand at the lounge, lest there be no veg meals on board. I was lucky this time around.

Meals on offer:
1. Butter Chicken with aged rice and naan bread
2. Veg Tortellini with tomato and pesto
Both options came with a brownie, cheese & crackers

Drinks: the usual suspects - cold drinks, water, sparkling water, wine.
Reds: Pinot Noir & Shiraz
White: Chardy and Pinot Grigio

Went with the PN and veg tortillini.



A generous serve of PN - I should say. This lasted well after I finished my meals. Then followed by coffee.



The portion was good. The pasta was cooked and the tomato pesto sauce was nice. There were some green leave garnishes on the top of the pasta, which started to wilt due to the heat of the pasta (the garnishes were added before service).

I asked 1F if the butter chicken was nice and she said it was the right amount of spice and she loved it.

CSM checked on the pax frequently and kept offering more drinks. I politely declined. She also checked with the pax in J if they needed anything else before she heads to the back to check if other FAs needed some help or give someone their break. It was nice of the CSM to check on the pax before she disappeared for a bit.

 

[Ade]

During the flight we observed the change in landscape - from green bits departing MEL to dry brown regions and then finally the red color of NT. It was a sight to behold. 1F was more than happy to click a few pics for me and she was taking a few pics too.



Then as were about to descend, the Captain announced that we will be seeing Uluru on the left hand side of the plane and he will also be doing a bit of turnaround so that pax on the right hand side of the place can also see the Uluru. It was a nice gesture.

Most of the landscape that I saw during the flight and after landing at AYQ reminded me of the movie "Last Stop Larrimah" and Netflix series "Pine Gap"

 

[Ade]

As the flight was doing the circuit to land, 1F and I spotted a landing strip that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We thought it could be a regional airport or one of em FIFO mining airports. But boy that was AYQ! I have never been to small regional airport in AU so far and I was taken by surprise. But it was also cute!



On arrival into AYQ. There was a small welcome party of VA staff, waving to the flight as we landed. It was nice The airport itself is a small one. There was one arrival area with one luggage belt. Surprisingly, bags took about 20 or so minutes to arrive. I was HLO (as I was flying out in the next 90 or so mins), but others had to wait for their bags.





When we landed in AYQ, there was a network outage in progress - so no mobile reception or internet or computers did not work! May be this contributed to the delay in luggage delivery perhaps?



There were busses waiting to pick passengers from the airport to the nearby resorts.

 

[Ade]

More to follow … for now off to board my QF7945 to MEL.

 

[AIRwin]

More to follow

Just noticed that Point Hacks has published a review of Business class on the AYQ-MEL flight but I'll wait for yours before reading it

 

[Ade]

After arriving a AYQ and taking quite a lot of pics fof Uliuru, my phone's battery had drained. So waited near the luggage belt and charged my phone. Once the luggage delivery started, pax were very quick to disperse into the waiting buses to take them to the resorts.

Of the 200 odd pax that arrived into AYQ only a handful pax took rental cars, everyone else went to the waiting buses. There was also a VA filming crew that we taking some pics around the arrivals area.

Once my phone had sufficiently charged, I headed over to the VA check-in desk to collect a paper boarding pass (as I did for the MEL-AYQ flight) to have it as a memorabilia. When I approached the staff, they asked "we just saw you disembark from the flight from MEL. Are you going back right away". I told that I only flew this route as it was an inaugural flight and that I had to be in CBR on other commitments. At this point another VA staffer said "AH! so you are my 1 pax heading to CBR, no check-in bags". I said yes and she was like "we were a bit worried that given the outage we might be delayed and you might miss your MEL-CBR connection. However, we are fine now".

The staff then asked "can we see your digital BP please". I showed my phone and asked if I can get a paper boarding pass. They said that they are unable to print one due to outage and they had been handing out hand written BPs for other pax. I was excited when I heard this - I never had a handwritten BP here. So I asked if I could a hand written BP and they were very much happy to do so.



I then went thru the emptiest security I had been thru so far. There was no one in the security line before me. As I put my stuffs in the trays, there was a couple waiting on the other side. The husband went "did you just get off that flight and you are flying again?" and I said "yes" and he had the biggest smile and asked "why!" I was like "I love flying". The security staff also joined in the small conversation and were enquiring if I do this for a living etc etc.

Anyways, post security - I was presented with a waiting hall, similar size the Murray's waiting hall at CBR city. The hall had 2 departure gates - Gate 1 and Gate 2. There was one food stall, which was shut because of the IT outage and they are unable to accept any payments. They were also unable to accept cash because they can't get their tills to open. After 10 mins or so, the food stall opened and I went to purchase something to eat. Oh, btw, there are no lounges at AYQ. Everyone, post security will be siting in the waiting hall until boarding is called.






Anyways, back to the food stall - they opened after a while. I queued up with other pax to buy something to eat. They had a nice vegan roll that caught my eyes. I asked for the role, the person handed it over to me and said that it is on the house. He told all the pax that due to outage they can't charge people, but they were going to discard the food items today anyways. So he was like instead of throwing away perfectly good food in the bin, I'm happy to give it to you guys. Such a nice person I offered to pay cash and he can keep the change, but he refused it.

 

[Ade]

I was not hungry, but AYQ-MEL-CBR was going to be in Y, so I wanted to have something handy should I feel peckish.



Around 1645, the VA ground crew cleared security and arrived into the waiting hall to prepare for boarding. From what I could gather, there were some delays, but nothing major and we boarded shortly. There was one senior VA member training a new VA member. Priority Boarding was followed impeccably! The trainee member tried her best to make the announcement calling out for J/WP/SG pax and made a funny blunder in the announcements. The senior VA member was just saying to us that "She is currently in training". All the pax waited for the trainee to finish her announcements and to start boarding.

There were totally 15 pax flying on the AYQ-MEL leg. 2 in J and 13 in Y. We had the same crew that flew MEL-AYQ.

Once boarding started, we had to walk out of the Departures area, turn right and kept walking a few hundy meters to board the plane. There were VA ground crew signalling and waving to us as we exited the Departures and directed us to the aircraft. There was only one aircraft on the tarmac and it was not like were going to miss it go someplace else lol



I took an obligatory pic of the Uluru as seen from the steps of the aircraft.


The CSM welcomed me back. I was in seat 6C.



Soon the boarding was completed. Pax in J were given sparkling white as PDB. Y did not get anything until reacing cruising altitude and then all pax in Y were served the same sparking white too. There were frequent (read: very very) top ups of the sparkling white in Y. The Y FA was very generous with the pour. I balanced it well with water and my vegan roll from the food stall at AYQ.



I then watched the classic "Amadeus" - story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart until we landed. The movie was good and I had finished my vegan roll quicker than I expected. So I had to purchase a snack from the inflight snack menu. Got this snack for $5.



During the flight the CSM and FA did stop by for a quick chat. There still couldn't believe that I was flying just because. They asked me if MEL was home and I said "Nah, I'm on the 2035 to CBR". They said that we should be there on time and you should be fine.

As we flew towards MEL, the cabin was lit with the red color of the sunset over the NT. The red color complimented well with the purple lighting of the VA cabin.

 

[Ade]

Descent into MEL was smooth and on-time. I got off and walked straight to the gate where MEL-CBR was boarding. As I was walking closer to the boarding gate, there was an announcement for final boarding call. I hurried to the gate and the VA staff were like "Canberra?". I said "Yes, sorry if I'm late, just got off the one from Uluru". The gate agent was surprised "You made good time. We were worried you might make this one and would be spending the night in MEL, but good that you are here"

Boarded to a mostly full flight - full in comparison to the AYQ-MEL Anyways, I did had a shadow in this flight.

This was an ordinary regular MEL-CBR flight. Nothing to write about.

 

[Ade]

My review:

Pre-flight:

1. MEL-AYQ was a great experience. My first time flying an inaugural flight. I hope I get to do more of these flights. The mood of everyone at the gate, onboard, the performances were all amazing. It was a great place to be and I felt that I made the right decision trying to be a part of this experience.

2. The performances by Mitch was very moving, the performances were well connected and had some goosebump moments. There were a lot of instagram influencers at the gate doing there thing. I had a look at the VA newsroom page and all of the insta people have their photo up on that page. I also saw Brandoo Loo from Point Hacks from the gate. There might have been other av-bloggers, but I only recognised Mr. Loo.

3. I got this feeling that the everyone at VA that was part of this inaugural flight seemed genuinely happy and interested to be there and doing what they were doing.

4. The pax were also very happy and participated in the events of the day with enthusiasm and fun. Some pax were unaware that this was an inaugural flight (like my seat mate 1F) and were taken aback by surprise to see the press and other things at the gate.

5. Personally, IMHO, the pre-flight/at gate events could have also included some sort of takeaway's or goodie bags etc - some sort of things for pax to remember the special flight by would have been really great and widely appreciated. To me this is a place where VA could have done better? IDK ... just my perspective ...

During flight MEL-AYQ:

1. Cannot fault VA service. The CSM and FA were very friendly and offered great service.

2. The pilot came on the PA announcing when Uluru was in sight and also circled it for all the pax to see - nice touch

3. For me, the meals were not a special affair. I loved the meals. Personally, I would have thought that VA would have done something special catering-wise for this inaugural flight. Say, some bush food or a bush coughtail or something that brings out the uniqueness of the destination they were flying to would have been well received.

4. Flying J is worth for this flight. The flying time is approx 2 hours 40 mins and the 737 J is a great product for this duration.

5. Free wifi for WP/J pax is a great thing as well. I rarely work when I'm mid-flight, so I used the wifi to watch Netflix.

On arrival at AYQ:

1. There was a welcome party of VA staff waving to the flight as it landed - it was nice to see and be part of.

2. Luggage was delayed - presumably due to IT outage.

On departure from AYQ:

1. Check in staff were very helpful and happy to be there.

2. Security was a breeze and I'd imagine, it can get busy, but when I flew - it was e-m-p-t-y!

3. The airport itself is very small and there is one coffee place, one eatery and one gift shop. But it was clean and well maintained. Restrooms were very clean as well. This is not an airport where I see myself doing a layover longer than a hour max. Easy to get bored and nothing to do around. No lounges is also a thing to note.

4. You can't get lost in this airport. No way that a pax would go to the incorrect boarding gate

During flight AYQ-MEL:

1. Great VA service. Attentive crew.

2. Given the inaugural service, unlimited champers all around


All in all a good flight and a great experience (personally)

 

[Ade]

Just noticed that Point Hacks has published a review of Business class on the AYQ-MEL flight but I'll wait for yours before reading it

Thank you so much @AIRwin for waiting to read my review. It's been a tough day or two and could not find the time to write down things.

 

[kookaburra75]

Great review, thanks for putting it together. I've been talking to MrsK about talking her to the Red Centre and my old stomping grounds. and using up some Virgin points might be the way to do it.