What Virgin Australia Does & Doesn’t Do Well

Earlier this year, I wrote about the things I believe Qantas does well and what it could do better.

Virgin Australia is Australia’s second-largest airline and Qantas’ main rival. So it’s only fair that I also share my thoughts on what Virgin does well, and what it could do better.

For context, I’m a Platinum frequent flyer with Velocity, so I’ve spent plenty of time on Virgin Australia planes. Overall, I think Virgin Australia is a very good airline. It has a solid safety record and I feel comfortable flying with them. But no airline is perfect.

The points in this article are based on my personal experience and are my own opinion. You are very welcome to agree or disagree with anything I’ve said, and to share your own list of things you think Virgin does or doesn’t do well, in the comments thread. You’ll find that thread linked at the bottom of this article!

11 things Virgin Australia does well

First of all, let’s start with the things Virgin Australia is particularly good at…

Enthusiastic staff

When flying with Virgin Australia, pretty much every employee I come across – be that at check-in, at the lounge or on board the plane – is invariably cheerful and wants to help. It’s a great reflection on the company culture that the staff are so enthusiastic and look like they want to be there. As a customer, it makes a huge difference to the experience of flying Virgin.

AirlineRatings.com has awarded Virgin Australia with World’s Best Cabin Crew for the past seven years in a row, and I think this is justified.

Priority boarding

For as long as I can remember, Virgin Australia has managed to provide a consistently great priority boarding experience. It restricts access to the dedicated priority boarding lane to those entitled to use it, and it ensures anyone in the priority lane is processed first. This may seem simple – and it should be – but it took the introduction of an over-engineered system with six boarding groups for Qantas to get this right!

Economy X

For tall people like me, access to Economy X seating is a great benefit of flying with Virgin Australia. Every Virgin 737 has 4-5 rows of extra-legroom seating. This takes the edge off flying Economy, and it’s available for a modest fee – or for free if you have Platinum status.

Virgin introduced this concept to the Australian market years ago. The idea is so good that Qantas will soon copy it by introducing Economy Plus – a new product with identical benefits to Economy X.

Innovation and a “challenger spirit”

Richard Branson’s Virgin has always been a challenger brand. Virgin Blue (later rebranded as Virgin Australia) has been no exception. As a smaller competitor to a very dominant incumbent airline, Virgin has always needed to differentiate itself from Qantas in creative ways. Its smaller size has also meant that Virgin could try new things without taking on as much risk as Qantas.

The original Velocity Frequent Flyer program was truly innovative, offering meaningful benefits that Qantas would never be willing or able to provide (such as family pooling and Fly Ahead).

Last decade, Virgin was the first airline to bring lie-flat Business Class seats to trans-continental flights in Australia. This led to Qantas ditching the 2-3-2 recliner Business seats it was planning to install on its domestic A330s, and instead installing the lie-flat A330 Business suites we see today. Economy X, mentioned above, is another example of a change Virgin brought to the Australian market.

Sadly, now that Virgin no longer offers lie-flat Business Class on its own planes, I suspect we’ll see Qantas using fewer A330s and more A321neos without lie-flat Business seats on Perth flights. But that’s a story for another time.

“Protecting” the Business cabin

When you fly Business Class on Virgin Australia, the airline makes a real effort to “protect” the cabin. What I mean by that is that the crew will routinely turn away Economy passengers who try to use the Business toilet or encroach on the space of passengers in Business. The crew also do their best to ensure the lockers above Business Class are reserved for Business passengers, and a crew member stands at the back of the Business cabin after arrival to ensure Business customers can disembark first.

It’s not a free-for-all, and that’s by design. Travellers paying a lot of money to fly up front appreciate that.

The magnetic rope between Economy and Business that Virgin used to have on its Boeing 737s did a great job of keeping Economy passengers out of Business Class. The new curtain that Virgin is installing in its place on refurbished Boeing 737s doesn’t look nearly as elegant – but it at least does the job it’s designed to do.

Pre-departure sparkling wine in domestic Business Class

When you fly Qantas domestic Business Class, you might get handed a small bottle of water before take-off. Or, you might not – even that is inconsistent.

Virgin Australia, on the other hand, still offers a choice of pre-departure beverages in Business served in proper glasses. This is usually a choice of still water, sparkling water or sparkling wine, with orange juice added to the mix on morning flights. It’s a simple but very nice touch!

Reward seat availability

If you want to redeem Virgin Australia Velocity Points for a flight, you’ll often find reward seat availability. This is especially the case on domestic and short-haul international routes that Virgin Australia flies using its own aircraft. But there’s often also availability on partner airlines like Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways or Hong Kong Airlines.

If you want to fly Economy to the USA or Canada, United Airlines or Air Canada will often have availability, too. Unfortunately, United seems to have pulled most of its Business availability to Australia. But at least with Velocity, you always have the back-up option of converting your points to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles – another useful Velocity program feature.

Cheap upgrades to Business Class

Virgin Australia offers three different ways to upgrade to Business Class, and they all provide fairly good value. For example, you can easily bid for an upgrade – and Virgin will often accept bids under $100.

The four annual complimentary upgrades for Platinum members can also be useful. I personally struggle to get value out of these at times, but that’s more a reflection of the routes I fly and the fact I usually buy either Economy Choice (not eligible for the Platinum upgrades) or outright Business Class fares.

Fly Ahead

Fly Ahead is arguably one of the best benefits of Velocity Gold or Platinum status. Finished your meetings early, or stuck at the airport and just want to get home? With Virgin, if you have the right status and fare type – and any seat is available on an earlier flight – you can change at no cost.

Since October 2025, Velocity Platinum Plus members can even access “Fly Later”.

Good value airfares

I generally find that Virgin Australia is cheaper than Qantas. This is the case for all fare types, but especially Business Class and especially especially for Economy Flex tickets. You can also pick up some great airfares during Virgin’s weekly Happy Hour sales.

Family pooling

The ability to “pool” all the status credits earned by family members into a single Velocity account is a great feature that few other airlines offer. Unfortunately, this is no longer as useful as it used to be, because pooled status credits can now only count towards up to 50% of the status credits you need to earn or maintain Velocity status. But it’s better than nothing!

If I was writing this article last year, I would have added “easy to earn status” as something Virgin Australia does well. That’s no longer quite so much the case, since Velocity changed to spend-based status credits. That said, for most people, Velocity status is still easier to earn than Qantas status.

8 things Virgin Australia could improve

On the contrary, here are eight things I think Virgin Australia doesn’t do so well…

Economy Class catering

I understand that Virgin Australia has made a commercial decision not to provide complimentary snacks on its short-haul flights. (And by the way, “short-haul” by Virgin’s definition can be over six hours, e.g. to Bali.)

That’s totally fine, as the airline doesn’t promise anything different, and the reduced service is reflected in the (usually) lower airfare. But it sure would be nice if the airline had more substantial options, more hot options and more fresh options available to purchase on board!

Most of the snacks available to purchase on Virgin flights are pre-packaged snacks. The airline does have a limited amount of hot food available on longer flights, but the selection is limited and often sells out.

I also understand that the logistics of loading fresh food onto flights is complicated, and that this can lead to wastage if not all products get sold. To minimise wastage while giving customers more choices, I would like to see Virgin introduce the option to pre-order a proper meal on longer Economy flights for a fee. This would mean you’re guaranteed to get something you’ll like on board, and could even open up a new revenue stream for the airline.

No ability to order special meals

As an extension to the point above, Virgin doesn’t provide any way to order a special meal – or even to inform the airline in advance of dietary requirements. This is even the case when you’re in Business.

Virgin usually has two meal options in Business Class. But if you’re sitting in the second row, the crew might have run out of one of them by the time they take your order. If you can’t eat the only meal left, you’re out of luck.

At the very least, it would be nice if Virgin let Business passengers with strict dietary requirements add a note to their profile. That way, the crew could be informed if a passenger can only eat the vegetarian or gluten-free option, for example.

Underwhelming in-flight entertainment

Virgin Australia doesn’t offer seat-back entertainment screens on any of its aircraft. It does have streaming entertainment available, but I rarely find much in the limited selection of movies and TV shows that I actually want to watch.

The airline does at least offer Wi-Fi, which is free if you’re in Business or have Platinum status (or $14.95 per flight otherwise). It’s now trialling free Wi-Fi messaging for everyone, which would be welcome. Better in-flight entertainment content would be nice too.

International lounge access (i.e. there isn’t any)

If you fly Virgin Australia on an international flight, and you’re in Business Class or have top-tier status, there’s no lounge access provided. This often catches passengers by surprise – and not in a good way. Frankly, it’s uncompetitive in 2025 when other airlines offer their highest-spending customers access to excellent international lounges.

Limited domestic lounge network

Things are a bit better on the domestic front, as Virgin Australia Lounges are available at seven major domestic airports. But that pales in comparison to Qantas’ network of domestic and regional lounges at 24 Australian airports.

Limited variety of food and quality of wine in the domestic lounges

Other than the addition of toasties, the food & drink menu at Virgin Australia’s domestic lounges has barely changed over the past few years. It’s not bad, per se – it just lacks variety.

It’s not just that each lounge doesn’t rotate its F&B offering. I could visit three or four different Virgin Australia Lounges in the same week, and the food at each one is pretty much the same. It would be great to see some local food specials that change from time to time and are unique to each lounge, like Qantas has at its domestic Business Lounges.

The wines served in Virgin’s lounges haven’t changed much in recent years either. At least Virgin has helped me to drink less alcohol when I travel – most of those cheap wines taste so bad that I usually don’t touch them!

Limited priority security options

Virgin Australia will soon expand the hours that priority security lanes are available for Business and high-tier Velocity members at major airports. That’s a welcome improvement, but these lanes are still only available at peak times in Sydney and Melbourne.

Unfortunately, Virgin is also permanently closing its premium lounge entry in Sydney. That was such a cool feature from the John Borghetti era!

Inconsistent benefits on partner airlines

While I generally find Velocity status useful to have in Australia, the limitations quickly become obvious when you want to fly overseas. Virgin has a decent selection of partner airlines, but the benefits you receive as a Velocity member flying on each one are frustratingly inconsistent.

As a customer, I would find it a huge improvement if Virgin Australia just bit the bullet and joined an alliance. This would make the Velocity program a lot more useful and appealing to someone who doesn’t just fly domestically within Australia. I understand that the airline has reasons for not doing this, but that’s my wish as a customer who travels internationally a lot.

What do you think?

So, those are the things I think Virgin Australia excels at – or not.

You can share your own thoughts on the things you think Virgin Australia does and doesn’t do well on the AFF forum: