The first of 33 Boeing 737 MAX jets to be delivered to Virgin Australia is now in service with new Economy and Business Class seats.

The plane will serve domestic routes over the coming weeks, before plying the airline’s new Cairns-Tokyo route from the end of this month.

Virgin Australia’s Boeing 737-8 (also known as the Boeing 737 MAX 8) features new seats and larger overhead lockers. The new seat design will also be retrofitted onto the rest of Virgin’s existing Boeing 737-800 and Boeing 737-700 fleets.

Virgin Australia is the second airline in Australia to operate the Boeing 737-8 after Bonza.

The first Virgin Australia 737-8 routes

Virgin Australia took delivery of its first Boeing 737-8 aircraft from Boeing at the end of last month. The plane, called “Monkey Mia”, then operated its first passenger flight yesterday as VA308 from Brisbane to Melbourne.

Over the coming weeks, Virgin will use the Boeing 737-8 on selected flights between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. It will then replace the Boeing 737-700 on the Cairns-Haneda route from 30 July 2023.

As more Boeing 737-8 jets arrive later this year, they will start to appear on more domestic routes including Brisbane-Cairns, Brisbane-Perth and Sydney-Perth.

Virgin Australia also plans to start using these jets on other international routes, including to Bali and Apia, from March 2024.

When booking a flight on the Virgin Australia website, flights scheduled to be operated by a Boeing 737 MAX 8 will be displayed with the aircraft type of “Boeing 737-8”.

Virgin Australia expects to take delivery of eight Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft over the coming year or so. The airline also has 25 of the larger 737 MAX 10 jets on order from Boeing, which will arrive between 2024 and 2028.

Virgin Australia’s Boeing 737-8 seating

Virgin Australia’s new Boeing 737-8 has exactly the same seating configuration as the airline’s newer Boeing 737-800s with eight reclining Business Class seats and 168 Economy seats. But the 737-8 has larger overhead lockers that can fit up to 50% more cabin baggage. This will be welcome news for passengers.

Virgin has also taken the opportunity to install the same new, improved seats that have been trialled on two Boeing 737-800 over the last couple of years. The new Business Class seats are wider and feature extendable leg rests, storage compartments and tablet holders.

The new Virgin Australia Economy seats have a new “ribbed” design and feature tablet holders. All seats in both cabin classes also feature power outlets.

One thing that’s notably missing from the new configuration is a cabin divider between Economy and Business Class. Some Business passengers may not be happy about this as it reduces the amount of privacy, while also removing a physical barrier preventing Economy passengers from entering the Business cabin. But Virgin says it will introduce a new cabin divider which takes up less space in due course.

Virgin will retrofit its existing Boeing 737s

Over the coming years, Virgin Australia will invest $110 million in retrofitting its existing Boeing 737s with the same new seats as those on the Boeing 737-8. It will also install in-seat power for all passengers and continue to roll out on-board wifi.

As part of the retrofit, Virgin Australia will also add an extra row of Economy seats. (On older Boeing 737-800 aircraft that currently have 29 rows of seats, two rows will be added.) This will be made possible by removing the current purple cabin divider between rows 2 and 3, as well as removing a row of Economy X seating (which will most likely be row 5).

Once the refurbishment program is complete, Virgin Australia should have the same seats on all of its Boeing 737 aircraft. This allows for greater consistency. Operating a single aircraft type is also more efficient and creates cost savings for the airline.

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.

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