Give us more flights Virgin - Melbourne to Sydney

[krispyjim]

I've been bitten by this more than once now and it's becoming frustrating. Is anyone else feeling the inconvenience in the inbalance of afternoon flights from Melbourne to Sydney??

The question I have to ask... is 17% business domestic enough or are they actually after more? Time to turn up the pressure Virgin!

 

[oz_mark]

I thought they had recently increased services by 7 flights daily. And an A330 service coming.

 

[markis10]

While it would be nice to have more flights, I wonder if the capacity limit at Sydney would stop them, it would not make sense to schedule more aircraft if they are never going to get away on time!

 

[docjames]

At least hourly, then add larger a/c (739 would have been great for this).

Perhaps the OP could enlighten us on their current schedule and his/her preferred timings?

 

[markis10]

The schedule seems pretty good to me with three flights an hour in peak:

 

[Justchecking]

I think you'll find the frequency hits a constraint with aircraft bays in Sydney. A well known problem that haunts all airlines flying in and out of there. Afternoons is also when a lot of leisure destinations are scheduled to depart so bays are all full. I believe that new bays are being built on the Virgin pier, that will allow more than one A330 to park there. Maybe we'll see regular scheduled A330 services to MEL during peak times.

 

[eastwest101]

That accords with what I have overheard from VA staff - lack of gate space at SYD in peak times makes it a bit of a juggling act sometimes.

 

[Noob]

Really, VA needs the whole of T2, not just their pier...But realistic restraints of a totally infrastructure and space poor SYD don't allow this. And to be honest, I don't think the current "vision" will go ahead without some massive changes.

 

[Jack Melon]

Give VA more gates and space they will. Make YSSY adjust there movements per hour they will. If there is demand, they will. If there is enough aircraft, they will.

 

[mavrick9]

Just putting it out there, what about more flights MEL to Newcastle. There is only 1 a day (other than via BNE) and could possibly be a option if your on the northern beach area.

The drive would be pretty good, although a bit longer than to Mascot (not including Syd traffic) and flights SHOULD depart on time..

 

[Jack Melon]

Just putting it out there, what about more flights MEL to Newcastle. There is only 1 a day (other than via BNE) and could possibly be a option if your on the northern beach area.

The drive would be pretty good, although a bit longer than to Mascot (not including Syd traffic) and flights SHOULD depart on time..

I could not agree with you more here! I fly out of NTL regularly as I live here... flying out in 2 weeks, but... with jetstar. Why? Because virgin decided to give jetstar all the money and passengers and market share to them on the NTL-OOL-NTL route. Jetstar have around 10 flights a day, Virgin: 3. I hope they can compete and grab more market share and more options to us... sick of Jetstar.

 

[pauly7]

I think you'll find the frequency hits a constraint with aircraft bays in Sydney. A well known problem that haunts all airlines flying in and out of there. Afternoons is also when a lot of leisure destinations are scheduled to depart so bays are all full. I believe that new bays are being built on the Virgin pier, that will allow more than one A330 to park there. Maybe we'll see regular scheduled A330 services to MEL during peak times.

That makes sense to me as the last two DJ flights into SYD they've kept us waiting on the Tarmac waiting for a bay to open up.... Pretty annoying. I mean it was only 15mins but that's enough to annoy people. On one occasion the pilot blamed Tiger?!

 

[Jack Melon]

That makes sense to me as the last two DJ flights into SYD they've kept us waiting on the Tarmac waiting for a bay to open up.... Pretty annoying. I mean it was only 15mins but that's enough to annoy people. On one occasion the pilot blamed Tiger?!

Tiger uses Virgin's bay the occasional time in SYD, so no, he was not making up tiger was to blame.

 

[markis10]

Tiger uses Virgin's bay the occasional time in SYD, so no, he was not making up tiger was to blame.

Actually it was possibly not Tiger to blame, it's a common user terminal for the overflow gates which SACL control, just because another aircraft is in the gate does make it the culprit, SACL control the movements.

 

[Jack Melon]

Actually it was possibly not Tiger to blame, it's a common user terminal for the overflow gates which SACL control, just because another aircraft is in the gate does make it the culprit, SACL control the movements.

This is what I was looking for, thank you Markis . Did I ever tell you, that you are a god?

 

[ash.1111]

This is why arriving early is sometimes worse!