Virgin Australia to lease more 737s

[ben95]

Hilarious, Qantas and Virgin both say there's no room for a competitor but both expanding their fleets and blaming high fares on lack of capacity

For sure there’s room to grow in the domestic market and that’s enabled the fleet growth of both players, but that room doesn’t make it easy for a new entrant to establish into the jet markets. It’s easy for the incumbent to incrementally grow its fleet year by year to support growing demand, but very difficult for the likes of Rex to start from nothing and try to quickly get to that point where you have scale and can start trimming the cost. As with what happened to Rex the incumbents were aggressive in matching or beating Rex’s fare. But Rex can’t do the reverse because it doesn’t have the same scale to enable them to make a profit at those price points which Jetstar could.

 

[Saab34]

You need $300-$400m in the bank to launch operations here. That’s before one even makes a buck. A million other ways exist to invest and make money. Airlines are not one of them.

 

[jrfsp]

Qatar Airways is mulling changing 737-10 MAX order to 737-8 MAX (instead of dropping the order entirely) and passing the 737-8s on lease to their equity partners such as RwandAir and Virgin Australia

Qatar Air Seeks to Drop Boeing 737s After Making Up With Airbus

Qatar Airways is looking to strike the Boeing Co. 737-10 model from its order book because the aircraft no longer meets its fleet requirements, according to people familiar with the discussions.

www.bnnbloomberg.ca

They have realized that actually those A321s are better after all…

 

[Human]

pieces of junk

Fokkers are noisier (particularly if you sit up the back near the engines) but they have greater seat pitch and you're far less likely to find yourself in a middle seat. I perfectly understand if your preference is for a 737 (mine is too) but I'm wondering why you're describing them as "junk"? Is there something I'm missing?

 

[Saab34]

If probably say more ‘past the use by date’.

From all reports they have ongoing engineering issues behind the scenes. However Alliance’s fleet is much more active vs say Network or VARA. Network’s Fokker fleet is probably more the junk.

 

[jase05]

Fokkers are noisier (particularly if you sit up the back near the engines) but they have greater seat pitch and you're far less likely to find yourself in a middle seat. I perfectly understand if your preference is for a 737 (mine is too) but I'm wondering why you're describing them as "junk"? Is there something I'm missing?

No J for starters and I think they are well passed their usefulness

 

[Saab34]

I see Qatar doesn’t operate the MAX for its own services anymore, they wet leased the whole fleet to Indigo.

The Qatar Seat in Y anyway, appears to the same seat as Virgin also.

 

[jase05]

I see Qatar doesn’t operate the MAX for its own services anymore, they wet leased the whole fleet to Indigo.

The Qatar Seat in Y anyway, appears to the same seat as Virgin also.

Which MAX’s?
I flew F DOH-SHJ on a MAX8 less than 2 months ago and they were still operating a couple of them at the time.

 

[Saab34]

It seems 3 had been stored in Doha since late October, and one of those has actually just started flying for Qatar this week again, but it’s not doing much perhaps two hours a day. Wonder what the plan is as such for the other two plus the one lone bird flying very little.

 

[AIRwin]

It seems 3 had been stored in Doha since late October, and one of those has actually just started flying for Qatar this week again, but it’s not doing much perhaps two hours a day. Wonder what the plan is as such for the other two plus the one lone bird flying very little.

MIN8 instead of MAX8

 

[hugamuga]

I fly a bit on the VARA Fokkers for work and I reckon they are super comfortable and quiet compared with 737s and A320s. I usually try and get a seat in the first few rows and you can barely hear the engines at all. The seats have nice adjustable headrests and heaps of legroom. The a320 truly deserves its reputation as a hellship, diabolically uncomfortable both for VA and QF (Jetstar ones much nicer)

 

[Saab34]

The Jetstar seats are better compared to those Tiger cloth seats. I actually didn’t mind the TT seats when they started, but 20 years on they need to be replaced. Certainly lifespan is only 10-15 years, but it’s mining ops so nobody seems to care about spending capex on anything product.

 

[hugamuga]

New jetstar ones are great, but some of the network ones (old Jetstar) with padding completely worn away are just horrendous. I don't mind the cloth Tiger seats either but they have the same issue with no padding left between the seat and the table so your spine just sits on the hard plastic

 

[Saab34]

The second one is doing this weird route also.

Any ideas?

 

[SCM]

Just checking is turning right works perhaps?

 

[Harrison_133]

VH-REX scheduled to enter service with Virgin on Friday as VA217 MEL-ADL.

As always, subject to change.

 

[Saab34]

Have they done a seat upgrade to these before EIS?

 

[Harrison_133]

Have they done a seat upgrade to these before EIS?

I'm guessing no. The seat maps are showing the 176 seat configuration.

 

[wenglock.mok]

Seems to be the same config that they had when they were with REX so I'm guessing no changes have been made to the cabin for the moment.

 

[HS-TQE]

Seems to be the same config that they had when they were with REX so I'm guessing no changes have been made to the cabin for the moment.

I'd assume VA reupholstered the J seats by removing the "REX" imprint and putting on the leather covers with the "Virgin" imprint.