VA leaves Passengers stranded on Christmas Island

[CPMaverick]

Legally, VARA and VA are separate airlines. Like I said, I was led to believe by VA that only VARA could operate the recovery flight. Not totally sure why, maybe someone here can clarify.

There is a reason why VA are required to show the operating airline when booking.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I would have thought the same thing before this experience. However (and maybe others can explain the details better) it is clear from my experience that the VARA exclusive routes won't or can't be supported by VA.

So after the cancelation, the VARA operations team (not the same as VA) has 2 aircraft in their entire fleet capable of this route, and a small crew experienced on that aircraft, to draw from. They can't tap into VA's 737 fleet or huge pilot/crew base. This makes recovery on VARA a very different experience.

They can tap in to, but the problem is the layover at XCH. I believe there are different rules for VA and VARA as they are on different EBAs (because as you mention, they are separate airlines in an operational sense - as they were competitors til XR almost went broke 5 years ago)

(I can't find the article but I'm 100% sure this route was originally given to Virgin Blue ... Not SkyWest. Hence it used to be flown with E190's and think it was originally B737's. I believe they receive guaranteed income on this route from the government hence the price of tickets as they make money on it regardless)

You are correct. QF used to do it, the contract was then passed on to Virgin. Presumably after tendering.

There's many examples of where there's routes which use a mix of resources (IE F100's, A320's and B737's) ... IE Perth - Broome, Perth - Darwin, Perth - Adelaide, Perth - Kalgoorlie

I've heard they are getting 5 more a320's this year for the VARA operations.

Oh really? That's pretty interesting. Guess it answers the question of what they are doing with the F100s over the next few years. Parts are very hard to come by, stripping one a/c will start to become a realistic option.