Virgin to Introduce New Routes and New Services

4th Mar 2013

Virgin Australia is on a roll in its expansion program with the opening of two new routes and a new service from its Brisbane hub.

On April 2 this year, Virgin Australia will launch the Brisbane-Moranbah and Brisbane-Bundaberg twin routes.

The intrastate regional routes will be start off with twice daily on weekdays for the Brisbane-Moranbah service. Two weeks later, the service will become three times daily. The weekend service will see a single return flight every Sunday.

On its Brisbane-Bundaberg route, the airline will make a single return flight every afternoon on any given day including weekends. The hour-long flight will leave Brisbane at 1240 hours and its return flight will depart Bundaberg half an hour later upon its arrival or 1410 hours.

Merren McArthur, Virgin Australia's Group Executive of Alliances, Network and Yield, is enthusiastic about the new connection to Bundaberg from its Brisbane hub. He claimed that the city of Bundaberg benefits from its connection with Brisbane as the Queensland state capital boasts of 11 connections both domestic and overseas within three hours of air travel landing in Brisbane airport.

The twin service will make use of the ATR turboprop aircraft with an all-economy cabin configuration.

Meanwhile, the airline will launch a new coast to coast service between the east coast city of Brisbane and Perth, to the west coast.

Starting May 15, the airline's current service between the two major cities will be improved with the deployment of a bigger aircraft, Airbus A330, on two of its three-times daily flights. Needless to say, the third flight will remain using the smaller and narrow-body B737 aircraft.

The wide-body A330 aircraft provides business travelers with more comfortable recliner seats or soon, the lie-flat seats that will become standard in all Virgin's business class cabins.

Its economy configuration is typical in most bigger aircraft with a 2-4-2 layout allowing more room for movement. The new aircraft also boasts of top-of-the-line inflight entertainment service and USB ports for electronic gadgets.

As a tip to travelers, one can catch the A330 flight on the Brisbane-Perth route by taking the first flight, departing 0845 and the third flight, leaving 2015 out of Brisbane.

The return flights will leave Perth at 1230 and 2245, respectively.

The single Sunday flight will also be served by A330, departing Brisbane at 2015 to arrive in Perth at 2355. The return service will leave the next day at 0505 in the morning.