Virgin [Atlantic] to consider kangaroo services - The Australian

[Fruitcake]

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian

RICHARD Branson's flagship international carrier, Virgin Atlantic, would consider flying to other ports in Australia such as Melbourne or introduce more services into Sydney in the future as it builds market share following the decision by Qantas to relocate its European hub to Dubai.

The airline's general manager Australia, Luke Fisher, said more passengers on the group's daily Sydney to London service via Hong Kong were now travelling through to the British capital, helping boost the airline's market share by "2-3 per cent" on the Kangaroo route over the past year.
"What we have seen in the past 10 months, it used to be a 50-50 split between those who went to Hong Kong and London, but now there is more London than Hong Kong. And I think that is a direct result of the changes that Qantas and Emirates have made," Mr Fisher said.

...

"Melbourne is definitely a good option. Or whether we consolidate with our Sydney focus and move to a second operation. It is really a 50-50 consideration," Mr Fisher added.

 

[Bundy Bear]

Virgin Australia should send one of their 777s or even later on an 787 if they ever get one on BNE-HKG to connect with VS200,

Trying to get the services connected properly will be tough though, VS200 departs HKG at 7:20pm to Sydney but VS201 departs to London at 11:25PM, so the Brisbane service needs to get in before 11:25pm but nesds to depart not to later from 7:20pm,

Would 4 hours each way be too long to be any use for passengers.

Or when Perth airport gets it act together PER-LHR on VA flying a 787 would be a winner.

 

[elbarto]

From what I've heard VS has good loads on its two HKG flights which includes the one coming to SYD. So loading it up in HKG with pax from other Australian ports might not be possible without adding an extra frequency LHR-HKG.

 

[notzac]

VS' LHR-HKG-LHR service used to be double daily .. so they may look at bringing that back.

 

[Isochronous]

MEL or BNE-HKG on VS would be nice!

 

[moa999]

Certainly on my recent flights, J cabin loads on VS haven't been that good.

 

[drewbles]

From what I've heard VS has good loads on its two HKG flights which includes the one coming to SYD. So loading it up in HKG with pax from other Australian ports might not be possible without adding an extra frequency LHR-HKG.

I know many people doing MEL-SYD-HKG-LHR with VS, so it's entirely possible there's a good feeder network from PER/ADL and BNE as well onto the VS service out which would mean MEL could quite possibly be a good option to 'expand' into.