The first of Virgin Australia’s refurbished Boeing 737-800s has entered service, sporting an extra row of Economy Class seats. It also now features power outlets at every seat, Wi-Fi and a refreshed seat design.

The first of many Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800s to be refurbished is VH-VUP, a 15-year-old aircraft named “Lighthouse Beach”. This plane recently spent three weeks on the ground at Seletar Airport in Singapore, followed by a further two weeks on the ground at Melbourne Airport. It re-entered service this morning as VA815 from Melbourne to Sydney.

Several AFF members have already flown on the updated jet, with one posting photos of the new cabin layout on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum.

Over the next two years, Virgin will also reconfigure the rest of its Boeing 737 fleet with new cabin interiors. It’s part of a $110 million fleet investment.

New Economy Class configuration

To make room for an extra row (or two) of Economy Class seats, Virgin Australia has made a few changes to its Economy Class layout.

Fortunately, the standard Economy Class legroom isn’t changing. But Virgin has removed the cabin divider between Business and Economy Class, as well as removing a row of “Economy X” extra legroom seating.

It appears that the legroom in the first row of Business Class has been reduced.

By doing this, it has been able to squeeze in an extra row of seats between Business Class and the exit rows.

This means that on the new Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 configuration:

• There are four rows of Economy X seats with extra legroom: 3, 4, 14 & 15
• The exit rows are now rows 14 & 15, instead of 13 & 14
• Rows 5-12 are designated as “preferred seats” which are reserved for frequent flyers with status or otherwise available to select for an extra fee
• There are a total of 182 seats (8 Business and 174 Economy) across 31 rows

These changes could cause a few issues if there are last-minute aircraft changes, due to rows 5 and 13 no longer being Economy X seating on the new layout. During the transition period, you may prefer to select an Economy X seat in rows 3, 4 or 14 as these are designated as Economy X in all versions of Virgin Australia’s Boeing 737-800s.

You can easily tell if you’ll be on one of the refurbished jets by looking at the seat map, as there will be 31 rows of seats.

Some jets get two more rows of seats

Currently, most Virgin 737-800s have 30 rows of seating. But some of the older jets only have 29 rows. On aircraft that currently only have 29 rows of seats, Virgin is also adding an additional row of seats behind the exit rows.

The first jet to be refurbished was previously one of the planes with 29 rows. It now has 31 rows – so it actually has 12 more seats than before.

A new cabin divider is coming

The purple perspex wall and magnetic rope that separate Business from Economy Class on the existing Boeing 737 layout is a casualty of this change.

Virgin says it will add a newly designed cabin divider that takes up less space. But this hasn’t yet been installed on the first of the refurbished Boeing 737-800s, meaning there is currently no separation at all between Economy and Business.

New seat design

Virgin Australia will install its new Business Class seat design onto refurbished Boeing 737s. This seat has already been flying on a small number of aircraft for a couple of years. The new design includes some extra features, like a fold-out footrest and new tray table, but is still a recliner seat.

Virgin is also replacing or refreshing all Economy Class seats, which will all soon feature in-seat power.

In the meantime, Virgin continues to roll out Wi-Fi onto its Boeing 737 fleet. This is complimentary for Business Class and Velocity Platinum guests, and available to other passengers for a fee.

Virgin to install Business Class on all Boeing 737-700s

Virgin Australia currently operates Boeing 737-700s in two different configurations. Some of these have two rows of Business Class, while others are in an all-Economy configuration.

The airline has revealed it will reconfigure its 737-700s so that all of them eventually have a Business Class cabin.

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.