No VA flights to Coffs after April 2021? - Now Back in November

[greglow]

Just got cancellations back from VA about flights in May to/from Coffs. Looking at the available flights, seems nothing VA happening to Coffs after 9th April.

Genuine pain in the neck. We live in the area, and have a lot of future flight credits, that came from cancelled VA flights to/from Coffs. Makes them now pretty well unusable.

And can't even discuss it with them. Credits for these newly cancelled flights haven't come back into travel bank. Platinum number is now over 30 mins on hold, and no other contact methods.

Thanks again VA for nothing.

 

[hydrabyss]

Just got cancellations back from VA about flights in May to/from Coffs. Looking at the available flights, seems nothing VA happening to Coffs after 9th April.

Genuine pain in the neck. We live in the area, and have a lot of future flight credits, that came from cancelled VA flights to/from Coffs. Makes them now pretty well unusable.

And can't even discuss it with them. Credits for these newly cancelled flights haven't come back into travel bank. Platinum number is now over 30 mins on hold, and no other contact methods.

Thanks again VA for nothing.

I called them early morning and late afternoon last Friday and waited no longer than a minute, so may be worth trying different times of the day.

 

[jakeseven7]

Just got cancellations back from VA about flights in May to/from Coffs. Looking at the available flights, seems nothing VA happening to Coffs after 9th April.

Genuine pain in the neck. We live in the area, and have a lot of future flight credits, that came from cancelled VA flights to/from Coffs. Makes them now pretty well unusable.

And can't even discuss it with them. Credits for these newly cancelled flights haven't come back into travel bank. Platinum number is now over 30 mins on hold, and no other contact methods.

Thanks again VA for nothing.

Surely you could argue for a straight refund rather than a credit and then fly QF which has just increased capacity from all angles into Coffs?

 

[AIRwin]

Surely you could argue for a straight refund rather than a credit and then fly QF which has just increased capacity from all angles into Coffs?

Or Rex?

 

[Mattg]

Thanks again VA for nothing.

An unintended consequence of Rex entering the market, perhaps.

So much for Rex bringing more competition to the good people of Coffs Harbour.

 

[dajop]

An unintended consequence of Rex entering the market, perhaps.

So much for Rex bringing more competition to the good people of Coffs Harbour.

Or perhaps simply VA don't have the right plane for the mission?

VA"s single daily service on a large plane provides good competition for QF for leisure traffic, but provides no competition to QF for business/government traffic.

 

[greglow]

Or perhaps simply VA don't have the right plane for the mission?

VA"s single daily service on a large plane provides good competition for QF for leisure traffic, but provides no competition to QF for business/government traffic.

Agreed. The rot seemed to set in back when they stopped using 98 seat E190's. Moved to bigger planes, then said they were half full, particularly on the direct CFS-MEL route, which was soon after stopped. What a surprise.

Yep, QF's service that allows CFS - SYD - CFS in a day is popular in the local chamber of commerce. In our case, it was CFS-MEL that was of interest. The VA service via SYD was ok, but the bigger planes never got the loading needed. We also had the odd time where the SYD-CFS leg was cancelled and we got stuck in SYD.

QF is now flying 717's CFS-MEL direct. I suspect that will do better, although it's still possibly a bit large for the potential loading.

Post automatically merged: Mar 27, 2021

I called them early morning and late afternoon last Friday and waited no longer than a minute, so may be worth trying different times of the day.

Tried again today. It initially said 16 mins but I gave up after 45 mins.

 

[AIRwin]

Tried again today. It initially said 16 mins but I gave up after 45 mins.

New border restrictions...

 

[AIRwin]

VA will withdraw from CFS after 12 April...

 

[jakeseven7]

Agreed. The rot seemed to set in back when they stopped using 98 seat E190's. Moved to bigger planes, then said they were half full, particularly on the direct CFS-MEL route, which was soon after stopped. What a surprise.

The rot actually started WITH the VA1 Embraer experiment....They lost a small fortune on those planes, could not operate them efficiently and had major maintenance issues as well.

 

[ff-jr]

Yikes. This will have a considerable impact on a tourism-dependent region.

I flew CFS-SYD-CFS weekly with VA for a number of years, up to 2016, and pax load certainly weren't an issue. I understand it's likely a very different picture since Covid, and admittedly I've not been back so much in recent years, but we certainly won't be making the effort via QF or Rex (sorry in-laws! ).

 

[AIRwin]

It's back!

Virgin Australia re-introduces Coffs Harbour services with fares from $45

Virgin Australia will re-introduce services from Sydney and Melbourne to Coffs Harbour, in time for the Christmas holiday period.

newsroom.virginaustralia.com

 

[antycbr]

It's back!

Virgin Australia re-introduces Coffs Harbour services with fares from $45

Virgin Australia will re-introduce services from Sydney and Melbourne to Coffs Harbour, in time for the Christmas holiday period.

newsroom.virginaustralia.com

Not surprising, they can substitue flights from OOL to CFS if the border closures continue.

Also, the schedule to BNK is pretty amazing in December - e.g. 29 December has departures at 0805 1120 1250 1650 1830...

 

[jakeseven7]

Not surprising, they can substitue flights from OOL to CFS if the border closures continue.

Also, the schedule to BNK is pretty amazing in December - e.g. 29 December has departures at 0805 1120 1250 1650 1830...

Will give JQ a good fight while QF scoops up the well heeled!

Byron is going to be RAMMED. Lucky they are all vaccinated up there

 

[antycbr]

Will give JQ a good fight while QF scoops up the well heeled!

Byron is going to be RAMMED. Lucky they are all vaccinated up there

I actually don't think there's enough accommodation to justify this number of flights. You run into a natural cap of the amount of accommodation, and a lot of people will drive up the coast to avoid the rental extortion too.

 

[jakeseven7]

I actually don't think there's enough accommodation to justify this number of flights. You run into a natural cap of the amount of accommodation, and a lot of people will drive up the coast to avoid the rental extortion too.

JQ and VA could run shuttles to the caravan park QF passengers have probably already rented their beach houses

 

[antycbr]

JQ and VA could run shuttles to the caravan park QF passengers have probably already rented their beach houses

Not sure where the Qantas Club is at BNK...

I remember when BNK and CFS were QFLink destinations only (and maybe ZL)

 

[jakeseven7]

I remember when BNK and CFS were QFLink destinations only (and maybe ZL)

oh the good old pre-pandemic days

 

[antycbr]

oh the good old pre-pandemic days

Gotta go a bit further back again… thinking 2000s before the orange menace joined the fray

 

[eastwest101]

I think this is more of a matter of all airlines having aircraft and crew all located in Sydney, with current border restrictions there is no appetite/demand for interstate travel, so I expect a lot of these services to Coffs and Ballina etc are really just QF VA ZL and JQ finding somewhere where they can operate their aircraft. When and if the interstate borders come down, a lot of capacity on these weird routes will be cut back to more normal levels.