Virgin Australia Delays/Cancellations

[Melburnian1]

The Friday 18 March VA515 (B738 VH-VUA) from SYD to OOL is running about an hour late and should arrive at 1130.

VA218 (E190 VH-ZPO) is the 1205 ADL to MEL. It took off at 1237 and should arrive about 50 minutes late at 1415.

 

[Melburnian1]

On Saturday 19 March, VA469 (1245 PER to BNE) did not take off until 1446; it should arrive at about 2040, 75 minutes late. VH-VUI, a B738, is the cramped transcontinental conveyance.

 

[Melburnian1]

The SYD - CFS VA1163 on Sunday 20 March took off at 1150, 70 minutes after scheduled departure and is due to arrive at roughly 1236, 51 minutes late. Aircraft is E190 VH-ZPO.

When VA rids itself of some of its E190s it may be difficult to achieve an acceptable load factor in non school holiday times on routes like this with a B738.

 

[Pleb Status]

VA 697 MEL-PER travelled all of 0.5NM before heading back to the gate this evening. Undetermined ETA at this point. VA reopened the lounge for us which was nice. Luckily both MEL and PER are 24 hour airports because I do not think we are going anywhere in the very near future.

I am a virgin at big Virgin delays so I had to pop the delay cherry at some stage.

 

[Melburnian1]

Pleb Status, many thanks: nothing beats an AFFer with a 'live cross' to use that overworked broadcast media term. For the benefit of others, VA697 is the 2035 hours MEL to PER.

Pleb, you may be delighted to know that Melbourne Airport - Flight Information, Shopping & Parking claims that you are departing at 2200 hours (that is, shortly) and has your stautus as 'departed' (which is true in one sense, the only problem being that you actually ventured back to whence you came if that's not too confusing.)

So does VA's own website. (There is a separate thread on how allegedly VA's website is just 'rubbish.')

www.perthairport.com.au has VA697 as 'on time' so it must know something that you do not, Pleb Status. Perhaps it is already thinking of tomorrow night's flight.

Happy imbibing!

By the way, this flight is supposedly forming VA696, the 'redeye' 2235 hours PER to MEL so let's hope that those passengers are aware of the likely delay or cancellation. With the time difference this flight normally arrives in MEL at this time of year at 0510 hours so at the very least that is looking like 0630.

 

[Pleb Status]

Pleb Status, many thanks: nothing beats an AFFer with a 'live cross' to use that overworked broadcast media term. For the benefit of others, VA697 is the 2035 hours MEL to PER.

Pleb, you may be delighted to know that Melbourne Airport - Flight Information, Shopping & Parking claims that you are departing at 2200 hours (that is, shortly) and has your stautus as 'departed' (which is true in one sense, the only problem being that you actually ventured back to whence you came if that's not too confusing.)

So does VA's own website. (There is a separate thread on how allegedly VA's website is just 'rubbish.')

www.perthairport.com.au has VA697 as 'on time' so it must know something that you do not, Pleb Status. Perhaps it is already thinking of tomorrow night's flight.

Happy imbibing!

By the way, this flight is supposedly forming VA696, the 'redeye' 2235 hours PER to MEL so let's hope that those passengers are aware of the likely delay or cancellation. With the time difference this flight normally arrives in MEL at this time of year at 0510 hours so at the very least that is looking like 0630.

As I am still sitting in the lounge, there is no way in hell we are going to depart at 22:00. I note they have updated to 22:30 but that will not happen either.

I would say that the fall back plan will be to turn around VA694 when it arrives from PER at ~23:30. We should be gone by ~01:00 for a nice ~02:00 arrival into PER. Start work at a lazy ~07:00.

 

[Melburnian1]

Pleb Status, probably a good guess. However using VA694's plane for your delayed VA697 would require another aircraft to be found for VA677, the Monday 21 March 0715 departure also to PER ex MEL as judging by the gate numbers presently allocated this is the next planned use for the aircraft ex VA694.

Of course the defective aircraft might be able to be repaired overnight but I assume you have not been told about that and have not asked as it is not relevant to your desire to get to PER (unless of course it can be repaired very soon.)

You look to be in for a long night. I trust in accordance with your 'status' that you are in one of the back rows.

 

[Pleb Status]

You look to be in for a long night. I trust in accordance with your 'status' that you are in one of the back rows.

Obviously I must be working for VA scheduling, as departure is now at 01:00. No announcements in lounge so far however...

Luckily, if boarding was from the rear, I will have to go to the furtherest row from the point of entry.

 

[Melburnian1]

The much delayed 2035 hours Sunday 20 March VA697 departed at 0105 on Monday 21, arriving PER at 0212.

In the opposite direction, VA696 (B738 VH-VUZ), the Sunday night redeye from PER to MEL departed at 0220 hours on Monday instead of 2235 on Sunday and should arrive at 0900 in a few minutes, instead of its normal 0510 hours.

The Monday 21 VA577 (0715 hours MEL to PER) is expected to depart at 0945 hours, arriving at a forecast 1100 instead of 0830. VA679 in theory will be quicker as this is an 0915 hours ex MEL.

VA904, the 0530 hours BNE down to SYD took off at 0651 and is arriving SYD at about 0907, 62 minutes late as B738 VH-YFG.

VH-YFG then formed the 0850 hours SYD to CNS, VA1413, which took off at 1005 and should arrive at about 1148, 53 minutes late.

VA313 (0800 MEL to BNE, B738 VH-VUZ) did not take off until 1012 and hence will arrive at 1110, two hours late, having been formed by the very late VA696, the overnight flight from PER. So a delay that commenced in MEL last night (Sunday) at about 2030 continues to result in flights 14 hours later being delayed.

 

[meloz]

VA 64 DPS-SYD diverted to BME due sick pax. Overweight landing 03:00 local, no engineers to sign off after required inspection before crew run out of hours. All pax accommodated and scheduled to now depart 22:30 hrs for 06:00 arrival in SYD some 30 hours after original departure.

Meloz

 

[browski]

Obviously I must be working for VA scheduling, as departure is now at 01:00. No announcements in lounge so far however...

Luckily, if boarding was from the rear, I will have to go to the furtherest row from the point of entry.

Just an update on the ill-fated Virgin flight MEL-PER.
There were 3 PAX with connecting flights from PER to SIN on SQ. They were re-routed directly to SIN on the 1.05am MEL-SIN service.

There were 17 PAX with connecting flights from PER to JNB on SA. They missed their connection and were given accomodation in Perth and re-booked on to the following evening's SA flight which leaves at 11.45pm.
However interestingly Virgin only wanted to pay for the one night's accomodation and the hotel asked the pax to checkout at midday and wait at the airport for 12 hours. After some Safa persuasion Virgin negotiated a 2nd night's accomodation for a 8.30pm departure from the hotel to PER.

 

[Melburnian1]

browski, this is amazingly detailed and most interesting information. In particular the tip about 'negotiating' with VA for a longer stay is gold. Also fascinating to see SQ passengers routing themselves (or being routed by a Webjet or a travel agent) via PER rather than travelling nonstop MEL - SIN.

In many countries one can (if rooms are available) receive an 1800 hours late checkout for 50 per cent of the rate one paid for the first night. That, with dinner thrown in by VA, might have been a better compromise if the hotel was willing - presumably airlines are valued hotel customers because even though they might not pay anything close to 'rack rate', their passengers fill otherwise empty, perishable hotel rooms at above marginal and fixed costs, so it is profitable for hotels.

Pardon my complete (perhaps in this case laughable) ignorance but what is 'safa' - surely not 'safety assessment of foreign aircraft?' I looked up the Internet and no epithet quickly showed.

17 connecting passengers on just one flight ex the east coast for the JNB SA flight tells us how valuable 'interlining' is - in this case, it may mean the difference between a half empty SA aircraft and a well loaded one, given that there are presumably 'connectors' from SYD and BNE plus WA mining towns.

 

[Melburnian1]

VA691, the 1735 MEL to PER on Monday 21 March is not expected to depart until about 2130 hours, so delays are continuing on this important route 24 hours after the failure of an aircraft in MEL last night.

UPDATE: VA691 was airborne at 2149; arrival should be at about 2235 hours instead of 1850.

 

[Pleb Status]

Pardon my complete (perhaps in this case laughable) ignorance but what is 'safa' - surely not 'safety assessment of foreign aircraft?' I looked up the Internet and no epithet quickly showed.

A 'safa' is a someone of South African decent.

 

[Melburnian1]

VA1332 is the 1940 hours from MEL to HBA that on Wednesday 23 March did not take off until 2100 hours.

VA353, the 2000 hours MEL to BNE was worse affected with it not being airborne until 2126 hours.

 

[QF WP]

Looks like both VA and QF could be affected in MEL today, just got this text:



Should I name it VA Delays?? (Was hoping for VA Upgrade Fairy)

 

[Melburnian1]

QF WP, thank you. Perhaps you have not seen it but these runway works have been the subject of a separate thread in the airline cancellations and delays grouping of threads:

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ons/probable-mel-delays-due-runway-74633.html

A bad choice of words by VA because the word 'impact' should be reserved for collisions. VA means to say 'affected.'

We have been fortunate to have contributions from two esteemed AFFers who work in the aviation sector that went into some details about these works and what to date have been mostly '10 to 15 minute' delays. One contributor suggested that the works will continue until mid or late May 2016.

As many of us know MEL already suffers delays during the busier times which to summarise tend to be 0700 - 0930 hours, around 1100, around 1500 and then the evening peak from roughly 1630 to 1900. Saturdays is the least busy day, particularly during the afternoon and early to mid evening. 2230 to 0100 is busy in MEL for international departures but normally (unless inbound flights are very late) not busy for domestic arrivals or departures, or international arrivals: the latter tend to have mostly come in a bit earlier in the evening.

VA679, the 0915 hours from MEL to PER on Thursday 24 March did not take off until 1100. VA733, the 0910 hours from MEL to OOL took off at 1026.

One of our esteemed contributors asserted some while back (and may have done so twice, the second time more recently) that the new (third) runway for MEL may be 'in the wrong spot' (as from memory it is to be parallel to the existing main runway) with comments being made about the prevailing winds at MEL.

 

[Melburnian1]

Continuing the late running on Holy Thursday (24 March 2016), VA1507, the 0930 hours from MEL to MCY took off at a delayed 1019 while VA219 (1010 hours MEL across to ADL) was not airborne until 1109.

The 1205 MEL - CBR, VA269, was also delayed, taking off at 1303 hours.

Later today, the 1500 hours mid afternoon from MEL to BNE, VA333 is not expected to take off until 1555 while VA863 (1630 hours MEL to SYD) and VA869 (1715 hours departure, same route and direction) have both been cancelled.

One wonders on a busy day like this how 300 or more passengers probably booked in total on these two flights are found spare seats on other flights. Information from any affected AFF members would be great.

 

[Melburnian1]

Demonstrating that 24 March delays are not confined to the 'Mexicans' (Melbourne), VA646, the 1235 SYD - CBR (ATR72 VH-FVZ) did not take off until 1428 and should arrive at about 1516, 100 minutes late.

 

[Pushka]

Demonstrating that 24 March delays are not confined to the 'Mexicans' (Melbourne), VA646, the 1235 SYD - CBR (ATR72 VH-FVZ) did not take off until 1428 and should arrive at about 1516, 100 minutes late.

MasterP on Syd-Cbr this arvo for a father/sons fly fishing event. Due to arrive at 4.35 pm. Is that affected too?