Correct me if I’m wrong … but VA was a LCC when they first arrived, weren’t they?
Circa 2010 I had about a half-dozen trips to BNE from SYD for work, VA’s price-point was more like JQ than QF throughout the day. I flew VA most of the time, not only because they used the rear stairs at BNE, but because it was about half the price at the times I was travelling, and I preferred to buy a snack & drink that I wanted for an extra ~10% over the half-price fare than eat the soggy whatever that QF was serving.
They started as VB (aka DJ). It eventually went full circle as VB morphed in Full Service VA 1.0 (filed Voluntary Administration on the back of "too many cooks") and went back to a Hybrid/LCC as VA 2.0 (with a 8 seater J cabin attached).
