Virgin Australia flights to Doha

[I love to travel]

Anyone know why they have stopped VA 15 being daily?

 

[henrus]

Anyone know why they have stopped VA 15 being daily?

Lower loads during Feb/March. Will resume daily from 21 March.

 

[PERLHR]

Lower loads during Feb/March. Will resume daily from 21 March.

Reduce the price ...higher loads? Just a thought....

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Our flight was packed to Sydney. it’s clearly VA in theory only. There’s not even co-branding on the menus anymore.

And out of interest, that QR DOH-MEL-CBR flight… it’s one where they tagged on CBR to get more flights? When they call the flight there’s absolutely no mention of CBR… only MEL

Any pretence that VA is involved, or that the QR tag flights are serving additional 2nd tier cities is long gone!

 

[Saab34]

Any pretence that VA is involved, or that the QR tag flights are serving additional 2nd tier cities is long gone!

Well that was always the intention I guess. They got what they wanted. Now the trick is to see how long they can run this arrangement. Ideally, forever and ever.

 

[HS-TQE]

Well that was always the intention I guess. They got what they wanted. Now the trick is to see how long they can run this arrangement. Ideally, forever and ever.

I don't see the QR/VA wet-lease arrangement being renewed by the IASC.

There is a reason why the IASC pretty much forced VA to commence a "secondment" program for 'selected' flight deck crews + FAs to train on QR's long haul aircraft to get this wet-lease arrangement approved, provided VA actually spend the money to investigate whether to actually re-commence long haul on their own aircraft within the 5 year timeframe.

 

[jase05]

I don't see the QR/VA wet-lease arrangement being renewed by the IASC.

There is a reason why the IASC pretty much forced VA to commence a "secondment" program for 'selected' flight deck crews + FAs to train on QR's long haul aircraft to get this wet-lease arrangement approved, provided VA actually spend the money to investigate whether to actually re-commence long haul on their own aircraft within the 5 year timeframe.

Maybe the government could just give QR the slots they want and the whole charade can end

 

[Saab34]

Well that would be an option. Virgin could come out and say they have concluded that they cannot take these flights on in house as they will be loss making, can’t get aircraft, scale is too small etc etc, please grant QR extra bilaterals.

 

[HS-TQE]

Well that would be an option. Virgin could come out and say they have concluded that they cannot take these flights on in house as they will be loss making, can’t get aircraft, scale is too small etc etc, please grant QR extra bilaterals.

It would be more of Qatar the country rather than the airline but good point.

Qatar and Australia exactly isn't the best of friends either.

They could easily probe Qatar on if "you couldn't make it work with your Virgin investment, how it could work in-house with you guys" and/or "what can your country (Qatar) do for us in Australia to make us grant you the extra aviation bilaterals?"

 

[SCM]

They could easily probe Qatar on if "you couldn't make it work with your Virgin investment, how it could work in-house with you guys" and/or "what can your country (Qatar) do for us in Australia to make us grant you the extra aviation bilaterals?"

Stupidest cough ever, they can carry Australians to Europe and other parts of the world obviously...

Australian government insistent on doubling down on making our geographical isolation a disadvantage for people and business, stupidity at it's finest.

 

[siri]

Yeah Hainan is a great airline, one of (if not the) best in China. The problem is that it's got a really patchy international network departing from seemingly random citities and almost never daily so you'd usually need to reposition via a domestic flight between where you arrive into china and where your flight to Europe departs and overnight connections as well because the fligts were mainly for OD traffic so not banked like SQ/QR operate their hubs.

For example HU only operates 3 times a week from Sydney and Melbourne to Haikou, then the onward flight to London is a tag flight with a stop over in Changsha so you'd end up making 2 stops and may require a visa depending on your passport. On the return you might need to fly via Hangzhou with an overnight stop on JD (a HNA group hybird subsidiary) that flies twice a week into Sydney.

It's just very complicated and they don't seem to advertise these fares at all locally in Australia - you can't book them directly on their website nor most typical travel agent in Australia (some big OTA have quite sophisticaed engine so is able to piece together the right flight for you) or you'd need to deal with agents in China that knows the system in depth.

Of course you can book Hainan air directly on their web site.. I did that in last December going to Dubai and service is great. Syd to Dubai they did check in all baggages but Dubai to Sydney we have to checkout at Haikou and check in again there which took about one hr to do that with all security checks. Haikou airport is big and nice at 2 am landing for transit their lounge was open which was magic.