What is Virgin Australia's strategy (post-administration)?

[QLDAviator]

I don’t disagree, QF and NZ will pick up all the premium / business passengers trans tasman.

That leaves VA2 and JQ to pick up the low yielding budget / ‘other bucket’.

Hardly an appetising business case right.

I certainly agree. I think JQ makes it work as Qantas owns it, meaning JQ will be “funded” by Qantas, and passengers can choose cheap and basic or costly but full service. For VA, however, they have to manage themselves

 

[HS-TQE]

I certainly agree. I think JQ makes it work as Qantas owns it, meaning JQ will be “funded” by Qantas, and passengers can choose cheap and basic or costly but full service. For VA, however, they have to manage themselves

Also allows JQ to be creative with their schedules out of MEL, they offer a redeye ex-MEL to AKL.

I would've thought JQ would've looked at opportunities out of MCY for South East Queensland passengers to NZ (in addition to their OOL-AKL/MCY/CHC flights), at least to CHC or WLG if they are not willing to compete with NZ on the MCY-AKL sector, which is basically NZ's LCC 'Seat to Suit' service on that sector.

The aircraft could either be staffed by NZ crew or come from a OOL-CHC-MCY-CHC-OOL rotation by OOL crews for example.

It would at least allow JQ to say they serve South East Queensland to most cities in New Zealand with many options.

 

[Saab34]

Always thought Jetstar would give AKL-CNS a crack. I recall ANZ even ran widebodies on the route, looks like A321N at the moment

 

[HS-TQE]

IIRC NZ's flights to CNS and MCY from AKL was meant to be moved from Seasonal to Year Round (although partially taxpayer subsidised via Qld's AAIF), however it seems NZ has somewhat managed to defer or hold off on that agreement, and has pulled both cities back to seasonal since the restart of services to both Queensland Airports.

 

[QLDAviator]

Virgin Australia expands Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet and secures access to full-flight simulator in Perth

newsroom.virginaustralia.com

4 more Max-8

 

[MooTime]

Virgin Australia expands Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet and secures access to full-flight simulator in Perth

newsroom.virginaustralia.com

4 more Max-8

Excellent news, brand spanker aircraft at VA.
Improve the average age of their fleet.

MAX 8 yeah yeah.
7000 employees.
15% emissions reduction on Max 8's so on the way to greener greens!

 

[RAM]

Virgin Australia expands Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet and secures access to full-flight simulator in Perth

newsroom.virginaustralia.com

4 more Max-8

As of end July there are just over 580, of the 630+ delivered, Max8s in use - but did not stop the Boeing hate community criticising VA II for adding 4 more.

All the posts (in other blogs) with people saying they'll never fly VA again...

Reminds me of all the 'celebrities' saying they'd leave the US and renounce their US citizenship if Trump won back in 2016 - so much hot air.

 

[Saab34]

Any MAX pilot should be well and truly up to speed with Stab trim malfunctions, any further problems around this you would be grounding the airline and investigating the training department.

Zero excuse for any unsuccessful recovery attempt, airlines have had plenty of time to slot in any activities, sim training around trim problems. I would also like to think any MAX Pilot wouldn’t fly it unless they felt confident in that area regardless.

If we have further problems and training departments cannot overcome the training recovery shortfall, then Boeing should just walk away from it. Whilst they probably should have already done that, leaving it all with airlines’ training departments might become a problem if you have some operators cutting corners in the training department.

I am confident that Virgin will put its crew through relevant training programs to deal with any above issues. Some others, not so much.

 

[serfty]

Any MAX pilot should be well and truly up to speed with Stab trim malfunctions, any further problems around this you would be grounding the airline and investigating the training department.

Zero excuse for any unsuccessful recovery attempt, airlines have had plenty of time to slot in any activities, sim training around trim problems. I would also like to think any MAX Pilot wouldn’t fly it unless they felt confident in that area regardless.

These posts would indicate this is the case:

Ask The Pilot

What is your pet hate around something the previous crew did/left to the aircraft that gives you the coughs when you operate the next flight?

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

Ask The Pilot

Pulling the CDU (or FMC) CB to force a reset? Never thought of doing it really and I’m sure I’d have to do it while captains were on the walkaround… Usually when I switch from DATA to a VHF frequency on VHF3 it’ll clear it but in this case it didn’t.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[jase05]

VA codeshare agreements given the green light by the ACCC for 5 years.
Some interesting reading

https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/public-registers/documents/Final%20Determination%20-%2008.09.22%20-%20PR%20-%20AA1000608%20Virgin.pdf

 

[HS-TQE]

VA codeshare agreements given the green light by the ACCC for 5 years.
Some interesting reading

https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/public-registers/documents/Final%20Determination%20-%2008.09.22%20-%20PR%20-%20AA1000608%20Virgin.pdf

Guess we clearly know who are the "Tier 1" carriers as per the 'name checks' of the primary partners in the application.

The ones not mentioned in the application (South African, Etihad, Virgin Atlantic et al) are pretty much 'just there' as secondary partners.
Whilst South African may had some use when they were operating Long Haul, there are questions whether some of those secondary partners which are still operating to Australia (Etihad and Hainan (currently freight to SYD only)) are better off teaming up with REX on the side, perhaps as their primary Australian partner.

 

[jase05]

Guess we clearly know who are the "Tier 1" carriers as per the 'name checks' of the primary partners in the application.

The ones not mentioned in the application (South African, Etihad, Virgin Atlantic et al) are pretty much 'just there' as secondary partners. Whilst South African may had some use when they were operating Long Haul, there are questions whether some of those secondary partners are better off picking a REX partnership on the side.

Interestingly it was mentioned that VA have said they will have a maximum of 10 airline partners and that NH looks to be still firmly in the picture.
Seems to indicate that VA will have codeshares with QR, SQ, UA, AC, NH and HA in the near future and a few tier 2 partners as you mentioned
I’d hate to lose EY from the stable as they have always looked after us as Plats and have had some top notch experiences with them

 

[HS-TQE]

Interestingly it was mentioned that VA have said they will have a maximum of 10 airline partners and that NH looks to be still firmly in the picture.
Seems to indicate that VA will have codeshares with QR, SQ, UA, AC, NH and HA in the near future and a few tier 2 partners as you mentioned

The only Tier 2 partner I can see VA may had use for is EY for some large O&D destinations that could probably support both EY and QR codeshares, if EY choses to stick around despite VA replacing them on some destinations with QR.

Apart from that, it seems EY are being replaced with QR for some European destinations per IASC.

It does seem that Velocity/VA are leaving a few spots for potential future partners, and wouldn't surprise me if they're spread across Oneworld/Skyteam/Star.

 

[Saab34]

Etihad is only Sydney and Melbourne now right? Pretty minimal considering at one point they had 8 departures from Oz daily. And 787 correct me if wrong. Unless your going J, not the greatest way to Europe.

The issue for Etihad teaming up with Rex, is the lack of connections. Very long layovers and it’s really only Brisbane and Gold Coast for major connections. Probably Etihad needs Virgin vs Virgin needing Etihad.

Rex would need CNS/PER/ADL direct from Sydney before I would even look at a tie up.

 

[HS-TQE]

Etihad is only Sydney and Melbourne now right? Pretty minimal considering at one point they had 8 departures from Oz daily. And 787 correct me if wrong. Unless your going J, not the greatest way to Europe.

The issue for Etihad teaming up with Rex, is the lack of connections. Very long layovers and it’s really only Brisbane and Gold Coast for major connections. Probably Etihad needs Virgin vs Virgin needing Etihad.

Rex would need CNS/PER/ADL direct from Sydney before I would even look at a tie up.

EY is single daily 787 from MEL whilst SYD is also single daily (split schedule) 787/77W. iirc SYD seasonally gets an increase to 10x weekly (all 77Ws) before decreasing back to the split schedule daily during the off-season.

So pretty much twice a day now as opposed to the 8 (twice daily from SYD/MEL) across the major capitals at EY's peak during the James Hogan CEO era.

I'd agree that REX should at least be looking at CNS/PER/ADL, even if only single or twice daily timed from DL (and) EY arrival/departures in SYD or MEL.

EY does interline with both major larger Australian carriers, which would be handy (but likely steep) if there's a misconnect on REX, which DL would have a similar interline arrangement with the big 2 if there's a misconnect to/from REX services.

 

[Thibault]

The only Tier 2 partner I can see VA may had use for is EY for some large O&D destinations that could probably support both EY and QR codeshares, if EY choses to stick around despite VA replacing them on some destinations with QR.

Apart from that, it seems EY are being replaced with QR for some European destinations per IASC.

It does seem that Velocity/VA are leaving a few spots for potential future partners, and wouldn't surprise me if they're spread across Oneworld/Skyteam/Star.

Is there a list somewhere of VA/QR codeshares?
The VA newsrooms article only lists a few but not all.

When I try to book BNE-CDG - it always routes me BNE-MEL-DOH-CDG instead of the direct BNE-DOH flight that pops up when I search BNE-LHR on the VA website.

I hope that EY will stick around - I really like them - all my return trips to Europe were operated by EY and I cannot fault them.
I really like how 'seamless' the passenger experience is between VA-EY (at least since 2017 - when I started flying more), lounge access in Australia, Abu Dhabi, and overseas + the full earn status/point rate if crediting to EY Guest and Velocity compared to Privilege Club or Krisflyer.

 

[jase05]

Been a bit of chatter about that VA and NZ have possibly looked at a merger.
AFF might just get that Australian Star Alliance member they have been craving

Also mentioned has been a option of VA looking at buying out Rexy

 

[HS-TQE]

Been a bit of chatter about that VA and NZ have possibly looked at a merger.
AFF might just get that Australian Star Alliance member they have been craving

Also mentioned has been a option of VA looking at buying out Rexy

Was the NZ stuff recent or or during the Luxon/JB era before the 'blow up'?

As for Bain and REX, it's as much chance as 'SQ will TAEK OVAh VA!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!'

On a tad more serious suggestion, probably be a slight better chance of VA approaching Bonza IMO.

 

[jase05]

Was the NZ stuff recent or or during the Luxon/JB era before the 'blow up'?

As for Bain and REX, it's as much chance as 'SQ will TAEK OVAh VA!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!'

On a tad more serious suggestion, probably be a slight better chance of VA approaching Bonza IMO.

Recent.
Have just seen they posted an article in The Australian. Might be paywalled

 

[HS-TQE]

Recent.
Have just seen they posted an article in The Australian. Might be paywalled

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/dataroom/virgin-australia-holds-buyout-talks-with-air-new-zealand-and-rex-sources/news-story/f2dd506fb08271ab419df2f424ce5d67#origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&cap=swipe,education&webview=1&dialog=1&viewport=natural&visibilityState=prerender&prerenderSize=1&viewerUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Famp%2Fs%2Famp-theaustralian-com-au.cdn.ampproject.org%2Fc%2Fs%2Famp.theaustralian.com.au%2Fbusiness%2Fdataroom%2Fvirgin-australia-holds-buyout-talks-with-air-new-zealand-rex-sources%2Fnews-story%2Ff2dd506fb08271ab419df2f424ce5d67

Link comes up 404 but I can see it's paywalled via Google.

Slight serious note, NZ still has loans to pay to their government which they took out during the pandemic, so any third attempt at the Australian market via VA 2.0 will be a long while off. NZ's current management will be aware of the Ansett and Virgin 1.0 failures under different managements and egos at NZ, AN and VA 1.0 during those eras.