VA's retro A330

[docjames]

New A/C today for us coming back to mel. Overall, fantastic. Crews in both directions of our trip were great (a little disappointed our outbound was downgraded to the 738 with no offer of alternative flight times etc). Cabin crew was surprised when I hadn't been contacted by VA. Hmmmm.

Still, again, absolutely fabulous crews, and we got to Mel and would happily have stayed on board and headed straight back to Perth.

Some may recall our recent QF A330 "experience" - VA certainly have showed them up!

Agree the Ife system is a little "laggy" with inputs. Selection decent but not outstanding. If you flew transcontinental often you'd get through the content pretty quickly.

 

[ChrisCunard]

I love the fact people are calling the aircraft "Retro"
Its been in the fleet 2 years, and was fully retrimmed when introduced, and painted in new colours
I thought when I saw "Retro" in the title, they had painted one red, but its just another bloody whinge fest
I have flown on the Older A330s and find absolutely nothing wrong with them.
People are getting seriously upset over nothing.

Hmm.. I was pretty complimentary of the flight. Love VA's Coast to Coast.

The 'Retro' birds (and they are - the cabin sports the original Airbus A330 interior bins / lighting / air vents, has CRT televisions in the bulkheads, loop IFE etc.) only lag behind the new birds in over all product quality because the new aircraft are many years newer and simply superb.

No where in the review did it suggest there was anything wrong with these aircraft.

 

[MarkD]

Hmm.. I was pretty complimentary of the flight. Love VA's Coast to Coast.

The 'Retro' birds (and they are - the cabin sports the original Airbus A330 interior bins / lighting / air vents, has CRT televisions in the bulkheads, loop IFE etc.) only lag behind the new birds in over all product quality because the new aircraft are many years newer and simply superb.

No where in the review did it suggest there was anything wrong with these aircraft.

It had nothing to do with your review. I enjoy reading your reviews, and thankyou for taking the time to do it.
Its the general attitude that because there is something newer, the old one is cough, in that case its clearly not the case, they are a comfortable aircraft,
Even if they are 12 years old I would hardly consider them retro, and its my personal opinion to find that term amusing
Nothing in my statement was directed at any particular member here, just across the board
Anyway I will bow out and go read another forum, because it appears my free speech here is not possible ( more posts removed because someone didnt agree with content)

 

[markis10]

Anyway I will bow out and go read another forum, because it appears my free speech here is not possible ( more posts removed because someone didnt agree with content)

What are you referring to, there are no deleted posts in this thread .

 

[oz_mark]

Some may recall our recent QF A330 "experience" - VA certainly have showed them up!

Agree the Ife system is a little "laggy" with inputs. Selection decent but not outstanding. If you flew transcontinental often you'd get through the content pretty quickly.

Flew to Perth on XFC on Friday, and back to Melbourne on XFG yesterday. The content loaded on the IFE was a bit different between the two aircraft.

The one comment I would make was that if you are going to have a news bulletin, it would be better if it wasn't a news bulletin from a week ago!

 

[DGW]

The refit of these old 330s can't come soon enough...

 

[Bofter]

I flew PER-MEL on XFB yesterday and had quite an unusual experience - it was on time, the IFE worked faultlessly and some things were actually more practical than on XFC-H (the economy bulkhead tray tables are not great in the new models).

Never fear though, it wasn't flawless, the seat lumbar adjust function was broken and made the seat a little less comfortable than it could/should be.

 

[maninblack]

I thought these older A330's had got a refit, obviously not. On a slightly different matter does VA actually fill these planes on the MEL-PER runs? A guy I know who travels it quite regularly said that outside of what are clearly footy flights he'e never seen one full.

 

[mannej]

I thought these older A330's had got a refit, obviously not. On a slightly different matter does VA actually fill these planes on the MEL-PER runs? A guy I know who travels it quite regularly said that outside of what are clearly footy flights he'e never seen one full.

Apart from changing seat covers over from EK to VA there wasn't much of a refit.

 

[Bofter]

On a slightly different matter does VA actually fill these planes on the MEL-PER runs?

My flights are normally in the 80-90% range full in economy, at fairly peak times of the week but not the busiest flights of the day (going by expertflyer fare availability). In business the numbers seem to have increased also from what I have seen.

I can only find BITRE stats for routes across all airlines - for August 2013, the total load factor for MEL-PER was 74.5%, SYD-PER 78.6%, BNE-PER 76.1%.

 

[maninblack]

Apart from changing seat covers over from EK to VA there wasn't much of a refit.

Right then. I thought they were getting the new seats and all.

 

[lovestotravel]

My first VA flight in nearly 18 months is coming up, and I am going to be stuck on XFA/XFB going off the current seatmap. It WAS showing 2-2-2 up until late today

A little hilarious given my "love" for VA but just just goes to further my dislike for VA

Oh and I'll certainly enjoy the MEL lounge which is close to closed with the renovations

Well done VA, it's been a great 18 months away from you and at this stage (even before the flight) there is nothing to tempt me back, just more frustration and LOLs from me.

Now of course my return flight is on a QF A333 so let's see if that stays the same

 

[carwashhair]

My first VA flight in nearly 18 months is coming up, and I am going to be stuck on XFA/XFB going off the current seatmap. It WAS showing 2-2-2 up until late today

A little hilarious given my "love" for VA but just just goes to further my dislike for VA

Oh and I'll certainly enjoy the MEL lounge which is close to closed with the renovations

Well done VA, it's been a great 18 months away from you and at this stage (even before the flight) there is nothing to tempt me back, just more frustration and LOLs from me.

Now of course my return flight is on a QF A333 so let's see if that stays the same

While I take your views on VA with a healthy pinch of salt lovestotravel, the fact that your (and many others) travel experiences with XFA/B hard product have generally not changed or improved in 18 months is cause for concern.

 

[straitman]

My first VA flight in nearly 18 months is coming up, and I am going to be stuck on XFA/XFB going off the current seatmap. It WAS showing 2-2-2 up until late today

A little hilarious given my "love" for VA but just just goes to further my dislike for VA

Oh and I'll certainly enjoy the MEL lounge which is close to closed with the renovations

Well done VA, it's been a great 18 months away from you and at this stage (even before the flight) there is nothing to tempt me back, just more frustration and LOLs from me.

Now of course my return flight is on a QF A333 so let's see if that stays the same

Karma is what comes to mind

 

[lovestotravel]

Karma is what comes to mind

Pretty much :evil:

Well I was actually expecting a downgrade to a 737

 

[maninblack]

My first VA flight in nearly 18 months is coming up, and I am going to be stuck on XFA/XFB going off the current seatmap. It WAS showing 2-2-2 up until late today

A little hilarious given my "love" for VA but just just goes to further my dislike for VA

I think you will find that VA initially only load the 2-2-2 configuration into the system, I think all A330 flights show this until the actual equipment for the flight is confirmed when it might change to a 2-3-2 aircraft.

 

[Bofter]

I think you will find that VA initially only load the 2-2-2 configuration into the system, I think all A330 flights show this until the actual equipment for the flight is confirmed when it might change to a 2-3-2 aircraft.

Yes - and the point at which you could expect to see the change has gone from around 4 days out to 1-3 days out. My experience has been that it has normally occurred before online check-in opens, although I have had it happen later than that too (possibly then as an equipment change rather than planned).

 

[Bofter]

It looks I will get XFB tonight (VA692) based on movements in flightradar24.

 

[pauly7]

Pretty much :evil:

Well I was actually expecting a downgrade to a 737

For you I'm sure VA would happily roll out their ATR

 

[EuroKick]

Oh and I'll certainly enjoy the MEL lounge which is close to closed with the renovations

New section was opened today!