ATW Daily News

V Australia to launch service from Melbourne

Tuesday August 18, 2009

V Australia, the long-haul subsidiary of Brisbane-based Virgin Blue, announced a major expansion of its route network focused around Melbourne and Brisbane. It will launch twice-weekly Brisbane-Phuket service on Nov. 22, followed by weekly MEL-Phuket on Dec. 3. It will commence twice-weekly MEL-Johannesburg flights on March 13. It currently operates three 777-300ERs between Sydney and Brisbane and Los Angeles and will add an MEL-LAX service on Dec 1. It is due to take its fourth -300ER by early October, will add a fifth in September 2010 and has another two on order plus eight options. Virgin Blue Group CEO Brett Godfrey told ATWOnline that the new routes were made possible by the additional aircraft plus some "slight rearranging of the exiting schedules." V Australia also has applied for capacity to Fiji.

by Geoffrey Thomas

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