Virgin Australia - Cutbacks [on A330 Coast to Coast]

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Connor Dee

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HI Folks,

Is it just me or has VA scaled back both its flights East-West taking higher capacity A 330 aircraft and putting more 737 -300 on?
Sydney for example seems to have x 2 morning flights on the A330 yet from then on its 737 city, which is not what you want to be paying for when flying Business
I'm flying home from Sydney later this year and it looks like i'll need to fly back via Melbourne if I want a evening A330 flight

Additionally VA seems to have become rather "Stingy" with Rewards flights using Velocity points, December 2020 seems to be sold out on some flights already

Can anyone shed some light on what on Earth is going on with VA?

Connor Dee
 
I could be mistaken but I think there is a thread dedicated to the wind back of VA A330's already.... somewhere!

On the equipment changes to smaller 737s - at the core of it, it is simple, over time VA have not been able to fill (profitably) their widebodies on trans-continental so are moving the capacity to try and fill them elsewhere, replacing with smaller aircraft. From memory as the mining boom started winding back and the failure of VARA to gain much traction (feeder flights to trans con) was when the decline began. QF at the same time was expanding its presence significantly with the purchase of Network Aviation (and folding it into QFLink) and has maintained much of its A330 transcon flying.

On Velocity seat avails - I've got a stockpile of points I can barely use anywhere - forget international. I haven't tried for a while to use it on trans-con so others might advise but probably makes sense that with them using more 737's now, less seats = less avails.
 
Had a look last night for PER-east coast and the (admittedly few) dates I checked all had 737 for the red eye. Not what you want for a J redemption
 
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There are only 6 A330s in the VA fleet, and 2 of these are currently being used for the daily SYD-HKG and MEL-HKG flights. Soon MEL-HKG will go but it will be replaced with BNE-HND, still leaving only 4 more aircraft. The A330s are also popping up occasionally on SYD-MEL, flights to Fiji on the weekends and also BNE-MEL from the end of March. Which means, again, fewer frames left to fly to Perth.
 
This hasn't just started. As early as June 2016 VA started moving the A330's off the Perth to/from East Coast flights that I usually take. Some of these are the good ole "red eye" out of Perth and whilst the A330 J seat is far better than the QF J A330 seat in my opinion to sleep on that's irrelevant if it is a B737!

This and a couple of other issues with the VA product ended up taking me back to the consistency of Qantas. Even if that consistency is consistently average.............
 
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