Guide to Virgin Australia’s Flights to Doha

Virgin Australia flights between Australia and Doha are now on sale, marking the airline’s return to long-haul flying after almost five years.

Virgin plans to launch flights from Sydney, Brisbane and Perth to Doha in June 2025. Flights from Melbourne to Doha will follow later in the year.

The services will be marketed by Virgin Australia but operated under a “wet lease” arrangement by Qatar Airways, which is also seeking to buy a 25% stake in Australia’s second-largest airline.

All of Virgin’s Doha flights will be on board Qatar Airways Boeing 777-300ER jets with Qsuites in Business Class. Qatar Airways pilots and cabin crew will staff the planes, but Virgin Australia will likely provide the food and amenities on board.

Unfortunately, these flights won’t use the ex-Virgin Australia Boeing 777s that Qatar Airways is now flying with Virgin’s original cabin interiors. Well, outside of one-off aircraft swaps, anyway.

Virgin Australia’s Doha schedules

Virgin Australia will operate one daily flight from Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne to Doha in addition to the existing Qatar Airways flights. They will fly at different times of the day, offering customers more choice.

All of the Australia-Doha flights are timed to connect with one of Qatar Airways’ arrival or departure banks at Doha’s Hamad International Airport. In other words, they’re timed to offer short connections beyond Doha, including to destinations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Qatar Airways currently flies Boeing 777-300ERs to Brisbane and Melbourne, and Airbus A380s to Sydney and Perth. From June 2025, Qatar will downgrade its Perth-Doha service from an A380 to a Boeing 777-300ER. This means Perth will lose Qatar Airways First Class service, but Business Class gets an upgrade to Qsuites. There are no further changes at this stage to Qatar’s own schedules to and from Australia.

Sydney-Doha schedule

Virgin Australia’s first route to Qatar will be Sydney-Doha, which starts on 12 June 2025. Below are the schedules for the new Virgin Australia (VA) service and the existing Qatar Airways (QR) flights:

• VA1 Sydney 14:50 – Doha 22:50 – Boeing 777-300ER
• QR909 Sydney 20:45 – Doha 04:55 (+1 day) – Airbus A380

And in the other direction:

• VA2 Doha 09:15 – Sydney 06:15 (+1 day) – Boeing 777-300ER
• QR908 Doha 20:05 – Sydney 17:10 – Airbus A380

Brisbane-Doha schedule

Virgin’s Brisbane-Doha commence a week later on 19 June 2025. This is the new combined schedule:

• VA15 Brisbane 15:10 – Doha 23:00 – Boeing 777-300ER
• QR899 Brisbane 22:15 – Doha 06:00 (+1 day) – Boeing 777-300ER

• VA16 Doha 01:40 – Brisbane 22:45 – Boeing 777-300ER
• QR898 Doha 20:25 – Brisbane 17:30 (+1 day) – Boeing 777-300ER

Perth-Doha schedule

Virgin Australia Perth-Doha flights start on 26 June 2025:

• VA21 Perth 15:20 – Doha 21:50 – Boeing 777-300ER
• QR901 Perth 22:45 – Doha 05:15 (+1 day) – Boeing 777-300ER

• VA22 Doha 19:50 – Perth 11:55 (+1 day) – Boeing 777-300ER
• QR900 Doha 02:30 – Perth 18:35 – Boeing 777-300ER

Melbourne-Doha schedule

Virgin Australia has not yet released its Melbourne-Doha schedule. The airline says it will put Melbourne-Doha flights on sale in early January 2025, with flights starting later in the year.

Qatar Airways currently already has two daily Melbourne-Doha flights, but one of them has a weird Melbourne-Adelaide leg attached to it which flies almost empty most days. Perhaps the airline is still trying to work out what to do with that.

Velocity Reward Seat bookings to Doha

At the time of writing, Virgin Australia had not yet released any Reward Seats on its Doha flights for booking with Velocity Frequent Flyer points. The Velocity website notes:

From 21 January 2025, Reward Seat bookings on Virgin Australia long haul international flights will be available for booking.

In the meantime, we already know how many Velocity points you’ll need to book a seat as Velocity has published a new Reward Seat table on its website for Virgin Australia long-haul international flights.

If you just want to fly between Australia and Doha, you could expect to pay the following amounts of Velocity Points from 21 January 2025 (when Velocity updates its Reward Seat pricing):

There’s also a carrier charge, in addition to the third-party fees & taxes, of USD60 (~AU$93) per segment in Economy or USD230 (~AU$358) per segment in Business Class.

Interestingly, this pricing matches the existing Velocity Reward Seat pricing for Qatar Airways redemptions – not Virgin Australia. The Velocity website also states:

The number of Points displayed above are the minimum number of Points required to book a Reward Seat on the most direct routes.  When a single booking includes: multiple flights with a break in the journey (at least 24 hours between flights); a change in cabin class; multiple airlines on one itinerary; or a VA domestic connection to a VA long haul flight; the number of Points required for Reward Seats will be higher.  Please refer to the VA domestic or partner airline table for the respective connecting flight value.

In other words, you can add a connecting Qatar Airways flight onto the same ticket and won’t pay a points “penalty”. But you will need to pay more points to add a connecting Virgin Australia domestic or short-haul flight onto the same ticket as a flight to/from Doha.

A one-way trip from Sydney to London via Doha would cost 80,000 Velocity Points in Economy or 158,500 Velocity Points in Business, plus taxes & carrier charges.

Launch promotion: Earn up to 20,000 bonus Velocity Points

As a special offer to celebrate these flights going on sale, Virgin is offering 10,000 bonus Velocity Points if you book a return Economy flight to Doha (or beyond) by 20 January 2025. If you book a return Business ticket, the bonus increases to 20,000 Velocity Points. One-way flights will earn half the amount of bonus points.

Eligible travel dates for this offer are between 21 June and 30 September 2025.

Virgin Australia also has various sale fares from Australia to Europe available on its website.

Upgrading on Virgin flights to Doha using Velocity Points

We don’t yet know whether it will be possible to upgrade on these flights using Velocity Frequent Flyer points. This has not yet been announced. We have asked Virgin Australia and will provide an update when more details become available.

Why is Virgin Australia flying to Doha?

This wet lease arrangement is effectively a backdoor way for Qatar Airways to increase its capacity into Australia, after the Australian government blocked it from doing so with its own flights.

Under the bilateral air service agreement between Qatar and Australia, Qatari airlines are only allowed 28 weekly flights into Australia’s major airports. For years, Qatar Airways has been trying to increase this number. But the Australian government infamously stalled and then blocked the granting of additional rights after Qantas – reportedly at the behest of Emirates – lobbied hard against it.

This decision was widely criticised by most Australian aviation industry stakeholders other than Qantas, and ended up becoming the subject of a senate inquiry last year.

With Qatar Airways unable to operate more of its own flights, the airline now plans to buy a 25% stake in Virgin Australia and get its Australian partner to sell the extra flights. It’s a clever strategy – if the Australian government approves it.

But Virgin Australia has not operated any long-haul flights since 2020, and no longer has any wide-body aircraft. That’s why Virgin is wet leasing the planes needed to fly to Doha from Qatar Airways.

What happens if Virgin Australia does not get final regulatory approval?

On 29 November 2024, the ACCC granted Virgin Australia interim approval to coordinate with Qatar Airways on the new flights from Australia to Doha. This means Virgin is now free to sell tickets on these services.

However, Virgin and Qatar have not yet received final ACCC approval. Qatar Airways’ proposed purchase of a quarter of Virgin Australia – a crucial part of the airlines’ deal – is also still subject to approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.

In the event that Virgin and Qatar don’t receive the full regulatory approvals, Virgin has committed to rebooking customers onto other flights or offering a refund. Virgin will also have to reimburse customers’ out-of-pocket costs.

“Affected customers will be given the option of a refund or re-accommodation on a suitable alternative flight at no additional charge and would not be out of pocket for any reasonably foreseeable costs if these proposed new services ultimately don’t get approved,” ACCC Deputy Chair Mick Keogh said last month.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.