What's the deal with Air North flying Virgin routes?

[Warks]

Recently booked a SYD-TSV flight and at the time I saw that it said BNE-TSV was operated by Air North. I noted it was an Embraer 190 so smaller than the usual 737 I fly on that route. I thought it was just some subsidiary of Virgin like they use to fly to NZ so thought nothing more of it.
Today I've received notifications that my flight has changed and it will be operated by Air North but everything else is the same. I'm wondering why they are telling me now. They appear to be a contractor who flies routes for VA and QF regionally. Do they have their own crews or can I expect just a VA plane and crew?

 

[yachty]

I didn't realise Airnorth were flying for VA at all, that's interesting.

Anyway, no, it won't be a VA plane and crew (VA don't have E190s anymore). Airnorth have been flying E-Jets up north for many years now, have their own crews, etc. FWIW the E190s are leased from Alliance, so it'll be akin to that if you've flown on one of those before.

 

[Saab34]

So is it AirNorth, operated by Alliance, for Virgin Australia?

 

[HS-TQE]

Airnorth flies E170s with their own crews and also fly damp-leased E190s from Alliance (Alliance Pilots + AirNorth FAs on the E190s).

Post automatically merged: Sep 10, 2023

So is it AirNorth, operated by Alliance, for Virgin Australia?

Pilots are from Alliance, but the FAs are Airnorth. The E190 livery is all-white with only the rego shown. It's a damp-lease (halfway between Dry and Wet lease) sort of arrangement.

 

[Warks]

Thanks for the replies. The weird thing about this is that I am flying for work but also a few days off after. So I booked Mrs Warks on points. A week or so out I get an email that she's been put on an earlier flight. Because it's a separate booking they didn't take my booking into account. I thought one of the legs must have been cancelled but I was still in the original 0800 flight. I tried dealing with customer service (Phils) and they insisted the BNE-TSV leg was full and that's why she was put on an earlier flight. I said I had the seat map in front of me and it was lucky to be one third full. They went back and forth between various supervisors and they eventually came back with the fact it was operated by Air North so they didn't really have a say or that's what I understood. Or that they had separate bookings that didn't show up on the seat map. Not sure. It was very opaque and I didn't appreciate it. I arranged for us both to go on a later flight (pm) so we'd be on the same planes. But I wasn't happy and logged a formal complaint with VA, where I'll be fobbed off with some excuse when they finally get back to me.

 

[Harrison_133]

I tried dealing with customer service (Phils) and they insisted the BNE-TSV leg was full and that's why she was put on an earlier flight. I said I had the seat map in front of me and it was lucky to be one third full.

Seat maps aren’t an accurate reflection of booked loads, because a lot of people don’t select seats when booking. I assume you’re travelling within the next few weeks? Looking at the fare availability on BNE-TSV for the period Air North is operating, most flights have been zeroed out meaning they’re full.

The Air North E190 is covering all services that were meant to be operated by a Virgin 737 until early October, due to 737-MAX delivery delays. Obviously, booked load factors for those 737 services would have exceeded the seat capacity of the E190, which would explain why they are full already. There also wouldn’t have been enough seats for all originally booked guests, which is probably why your wife was bumped to an earlier service. Not really an ideal scenario.

The call centre isn’t wrong in telling you the flights are full, because most of the Air North operated services are or are very close to it. It’s pretty clear though that they’re confused about what these changes actually mean.

 

[BRIS_VA_HAWK]

VA has had AirNorth doing this for them for a while now - I had a BNE-TSV leg in June that was on them. No J on board, however the first 2-3 rows are J seats...selectable in the same way that the VA E-Jets were when they flew routes with no J offered (BNE-ROK, BNE-ISA).
Unless you'd booked a J fare, I'd say get in early with your seat selection and enjoy.

 

[Warks]

Okay I've flown the flights now and the BNE-TSV-BNE flights were on blank tailed Embraer 190s. Couldn't find any fault with onboard service - you even get a tiny snack (Japanese rice crackers) which you don't get on VA. There were a lot of Alliance planes around TSV - is Air North Alliance?
Ground crew at TSV seemed a bit inexperienced - they mucked around for ages trying to set up the computer for boarding, with a lot of perplexed looks exchanged. They also didn't do priority boarding, just holus bolus. I'd already walked up to the gate as they said they'd be boarding shortly so got on at the start anyway. We left late, after a late incoming flight. Got to BNE with about ten minutes before the SYD flight was supposed to depart. There was also a connecting MEL flight which half the plane (a heap of high school aged girls) was catching so they asked people to stay seated to let us off first. Amazingly people did stay seated up front, in the main. Made our flight and then sat on the tarmac for 20 mins probably because we'd missed our slot. In any case I was glad, we got home in reasonable time.
Was also nice to grab dinner in the SYD lounge, happy they haven't removed that privilege yet. Didn't QF do away with arrival access?

 

[AIRwin]

Didn't QF do away with arrival access?

Not for Platinum

 

[Warks]

Not for Platinum

I wouldn't know...

 

[HS-TQE]

Okay I've flown the flights now and the BNE-TSV-BNE flights were on blank tailed Embraer 190s. Couldn't find any fault with onboard service - you even get a tiny snack (Japanese rice crackers) which you don't get on VA. There were a lot of Alliance planes around TSV - is Air North Alliance?

No. Alliance and Air North are separate companies. The only relation is Air North are damp-leasing their E190s from Alliance (e.g the flight crew are from Alliance, but the FAs are from Air North).

 

[Warks]

No. Alliance and Air North are separate companies. The only relation is Air North are damp-leasing their E190s from Alliance (e.g the flight crew are from Alliance, but the FAs are from Air North).

Isn't business weird? So do Air North own anything at all? Or just Bristow Helicopters? They did announce they'd been operating for 40 years on board.

 

[HS-TQE]

Isn't business weird? So do Air North own anything at all? Or just Bristow Helicopters? They did announce they'd been operating for 40 years on board.

Per the Fleet Lists sites, Air North owns (not sure if via mortgage or outright) their E170s jets and E120 Turboprops.

The 3x E190s are (damp)leased from Alliance, as it seems the "Airnorth E190s" can be called into Alliance FIFO service where needed.

 

[yachty]

Isn't business weird? So do Air North own anything at all? Or just Bristow Helicopters? They did announce they'd been operating for 40 years on board.

Bristow own Airnorth and Airnorth have been around since 1978.

Per the Fleet Lists sites, Air North owns (not sure if via mortgage or outright) their E170s jets and E120 Turboprops.

The 3x E190s are (damp)leased from Alliance, as it seems the "Airnorth E190s" can be called into Alliance FIFO service where needed.

As recently as last year Bristow said they'd bought at least two of the E170s outright.

Airnorth said they're having issues procuring E190s on their own (at least on terms that are agreeable to them), as they were otherwise planning to retire the E170s and upgauge to E190s by now.

 

[PERLHR]

Seat maps aren’t an accurate reflection of booked loads, because a lot of people don’t select seats when booking. I assume you’re travelling within the next few weeks? Looking at the fare availability on BNE-TSV for the period Air North is operating, most flights have been zeroed out meaning they’re full.

The Air North E190 is covering all services that were meant to be operated by a Virgin 737 until early October, due to 737-MAX delivery delays. Obviously, booked load factors for those 737 services would have exceeded the seat capacity of the E190, which would explain why they are full already. There also wouldn’t have been enough seats for all originally booked guests, which is probably why your wife was bumped to an earlier service. Not really an ideal scenario.

The call centre isn’t wrong in telling you the flights are full, because most of the Air North operated services are or are very close to it. It’s pretty clear though that they’re confused about what these changes actually mean.

I wonder if the same reflection is given on "expert flyer" however?

 

[Harrison_133]

I wonder if the same reflection is given on "expert flyer" however?

Yes. Both the VA website and Expert Flyer were showing no/very limited availability for most flights.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

FWIW, I actually enjoyed my TSV-BNE sector with this Air North arrangement. They treat the business class seats as EconomyX which was a great free little perk as platinum, and there was a pretty tasty biscuit and savoury snack both served for free with the coffee.

 

[eastwest101]

I'm not sure if it's because VA are short of aircraft or crew but nearly all the VA TSV-BNE services have been changed to Air North E190s and Alliance Fokker 70 & Fokker 100s. VA seem to have some two class B737-700s returning after the school holidays.

Qantas mainline has also gone with a lot of TSV-BNE now Alliance E190s but still has some mainline B738s.

Airfares a lot lower after school holidays finish so maybe a combination of aircraft & crew shortages. Alliance also has a decent sized E190 & F100 TSV base so that also might be at play.

Makes a nice change from B738s for Y class passengers anyway.

 

[Harrison_133]

I'm not sure if it's because VA are short of aircraft or crew but nearly all the VA TSV-BNE services have been changed to Air North E190s and Alliance Fokker 70 & Fokker 100s. VA seem to have some two class B737-700s returning after the school holidays.

Aircraft availability. The Air North E190 was substituted in at the last minute when it became clear the next MAX was going to be delayed and they had to pull 1 domestic line of flying. The 2x daily (sometimes 3) Alliance operated services were always planned for.

737 services on BNE-TSV return on October 9th at this stage.

 

[staria]

Aircraft availability. The Air North E190 was substituted in at the last minute when it became clear the next MAX was going to be delayed and they had to pull 1 domestic line of flying. The 2x daily (sometimes 3) Alliance operated services were always planned for.

737 services on BNE-TSV return on October 9th at this stage.

Unfortunately I just flew from BNE-TSV last week. It was with Alliance. I also just found out my TSV-BNE flight and my BNE-CBR flight are both with Alliance. My last Alliance flight was cramped and unpleasant, so not exactly excited to fly with them again.

I’m a little mad about it to be honest. I book with VA to fly with VA, not its back up operators.