A350OZ wrote:redroo wrote:Going to be controversial here... if virgin want to continue with long haul, the take all the A330s off Perth and use them to provide a consistent daily network from the eastern states. We sand gropers like the widebodies but we will suck it up.
And being really controversial, double down on Melbourne - Australia’s second city. The 6 a330s and 5 777 could provide a decent network from Melbourne. Daily flights across Asia and daily to LAX and SFO. Be Melbournes airline and leave Qantas to Sydney. Sorry Brisbane.
While MEL based and long-time VA Platinum myself, as much as I'd like to see this I think that ship has sailed. While QF clearly has a strong focus on SYD, they have built up MEL again nicely. If VA would try it then QF would counter, and both would be worse-off long term. They should have done this around 2012, when QF intl out of MEL was really weak. Now it's too late.
I agree with taking the 330s off domestic and building more intl services though, out of all three ports - MEL, SYD and BNE. Japan with NH partnership, keep HKG, maybe start ICN together with KE. But that's my armchair advice only.
Also, I don't see where VA would fly in Asia. Most destinations are low yielding and the "better ones" would have stiff competition. I mean look at SIN for example, VA's bottom line would be a dumpster fire if they ever tried. Tokyo is a good start because if that doesn't work you can bet nothing else will. They need partners, clearly this virtual network just doesn't work as FF's get treated as second class passengers. Up until recently the lounge situation was very confusing also...
I reckon VA is in a catch 22 right now, its too little too late to grow out of this situation, they either have too many or not enough widebodies and shrinking too much would be shooting themselves in the foot. They need a huge cash injection to actually do something because at this rate they'll end up like Jet Airways, haemorrhaging cash until they die. A LATAM kind of deal from DL would go a long way I think (provided it simplifies ownership).
Also flying VA is nice, but there are very minor things that keep on annoying me. I find the app to be terrible, uncompatible with tablets and unintuitive. Status that is pretty much useless overseas... the wifi is nice though.
Truth is they are fine if you're going up and down the East Coast or to Perth. Other than that they're more of a hassle than anything.