Virgin Australia Group has outlined their growth plans to support tourism recovery, including the acquisition of an additional 10 Boeing 737-800s from lessors. Over 220 cabin crew have returned to work and the company is recruiting 150 more.
On Thursday (April 15, 2021), Virgin Australia announced growth plans to support the recovery of tourism. The carrier has entered agreements with aircraft lessors to acquire ten additional Boeing 737-800s to facilitate network growth. Additionally, over 220 cabin crew members from the airline’s discontinued long-haul international, ATR regional and Tigerair Australia operations have returned to work, and the company is actively recruiting 150 more. Virgin Australia has introduced new Melbourne-Hamilton Island, Melbourne-Darwin routes and has extended Brisbane-Launceston and Melbourne-Ballina Byron seasonal services.
The carrier is also expanding frequencies on business and leisure routes and will offer over 220 weekly return flights by mid-June. As previously announced, Virgin Australia has also introduced network operational changes and wet lease arrangements with Alliance Airlines to improve efficiencies and add Boeing 737 capacity to other markets.
Speaking from a cabin crew training school in Brisbane, Virgin Australia Group’s CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka, said,
“We are building a strong and disciplined business, obsessed with providing our customers the very best of Virgin Australia travel experiences. More aircraft means more flying, and with easing travel restrictions, there are more opportunities to further support domestic tourism and the nation’s economic recovery from COVID-19. Today, we are operating around 850 weekly return flights, and as we approach the June school holidays, we will add another 220 return flights per week to our schedule. By mid-June, we expect to be operating more than 80 per cent of our pre-COVID domestic capacity.
“We’re hopeful that domestic border closures will soon be a thing of the past and are continuing to see positive signs of consumer recovery. As an example of this, we’ve had multiple record-breaking sales days of half-priced fares, with more than 75 per cent of the tickets being booked for travel from May onwards. All of this will provide much-needed certainty for hundreds of our team members, who through no fault of their own, were required to give up their jobs because of the extraordinary impacts of the pandemic. We are thrilled to be able to welcome many of them back to Virgin Australia.”
Virgin Australia has finalized arrangements to introduce 10 Boeing 737-800s previously operated by the airline, with the first three joining the carrier’s mainline fleet, with the remainder entering service by October. The company is also finalizing wet lease arrangements with Alliance Airlines to operate Fokker 100 services on behalf of Virgin Australia on the Brisbane-Alice Springs and Brisbane Mt. Isa routes by April 19, 2021. VARA, (Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) will operate an Airbus A320 on select mainline routes between Perth and Darwin, Broome, and Adelaide starting next month. Finally, trans-Tasman services to Queenstown are scheduled to resume ahead of the school holidays on September 18, 2021.
Source: Virgin Australia