Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
Recycled 3rd prototype A35K.
Virgin seems to always look for canny buys -
The first 3 Virgin A340-300's in 1993 came from a large order cancelled by Northwest who never took the type in the end.
The next couple were recycled prototypes ships c/n 2 and 3 - bought from Airbus 5 years after being built in 1992.
Virgin also was reported to have had a sniff at the 4 ex Olympic Airways A340's grounded at ATH from 2009 which could have been had for a song but they did NTU.
I gather the 5 new 747-443 got snapped up cheap by Virgin through GECAS from Boeing (Thank you very much) in 2001, being built for Alitalia but NTU.
The 747-443s were delivered to VS with AZ seating and all painted in the latest Virgin Silver Dream Machine Livery
The fleet of 5 would be dedicated to the Virgin LGW and MAN high density Leisure/Beach routes.
The airline (VS) was on the lookout for more -400’s to replace the -200's. Talks were at an advanced stage with British Airways to acquire a small number of aircraft from them. Although due to their Rolls Royce engines, they wouldn’t provide commonality with the GE engines fitted to the existing Virgin Boeing 747-400 fleet already in service.
However, an opportunity presented itself at the end of 2000. Alitalia had made an 11th hour decision to not take up 5 747-443’s it had an order for, and instead opted for the smaller 777-200ER.
It was so late in the day when Alitalia cancelled these particular aircraft that they were virtually complete.
The cabin and IFE wasn’t in line with what Virgin had fitted to the rest of the fleet either. As such, Boeing were pretty desperate to move these 5 aircraft on, and Virgin grabbed themselves a deal.
Virgin Seating at first was -
Zone A 14J Upper Class (Large Purple fabric soft Recliner seats with amazing leg room) small bar area and beauty therapists space.
Premium Economy All Upper Deck and 2 rows in Zone B 58W Large soft Recliner seats in Red and Blue fabrics, or all Red - tiny seatback IFE screens
Economy All Lower deck 379Y seats in a mix of Red, Orange & Blue fabrics - tiny seatback IFE screens
I do recall them even having dual Italian/English signage on board.
Cabin refurbs were done by Virgin around 2012 with service life expected to around 2019.
Virgin 747-443 original names were -
English Rose G-VROS
Hot Lips G-VLIP
Barbarella G-VROM
Pretty Woman G-VROY
Jersey Girl G-VGAL
To be seen often or on and off over the years at -
MCO MIA LAS BGI UVF ANU NAS TAB GND HAV VRA CUN MBJ KIN
Some flights were inaugurated for just a few months such as NAS and VRA and surprisingly these flights were all operated with a 747-400.
The AZ 744's were ordered during the alliance with KLM who had 20 747-406, thus standardizing the two fleets was therefore a logical choice.
In Ireland EI-CVG, CVH, CVI, CVJ and CVK registrations had already been reserved for the Alitalia 747-443s, but after the break-up with KLM, AZ switched their 744 order to 6 772ERs.
Virgin Atlantic took over the order of the five aircraft, very pleased to obtain top-of-the-line aircraft already in an advanced stage of construction.
The aircraft supplied to Virgin made the transfer flight from the Boeing Factory in Seattle to Auckland where they would be reconfigured and repainted, with the winglets still painted with the AZ logo.
NOVA IFE on 747-443
During the summer of 2001 Virgin took delivery of five 747-400 aircraft (the cancelled Alitalia order), these were fitted with an Inflight Entertainment system new to Virgin Atlantic supplied by Thales.
The new product, called 'Nova' has only 8 channels of seat back entertainment consisting of:
5 Movie channels
2 kids channels (featuring a combination of movies and tv programming)
1 TV channel which works on a cycle basis showing a selection of current TV programming
14 audio channels ranging from soul to Classical music
Moving Skymap display which plots the aircraft's flight path
NOVA was not a patch on Virgin's ODYSSEY state-of-the-art Matsu****a Avionic Systems IFE on the LHR 747's.
The Odyssey system offers 20 channels of entertainment, 10 movie channels plus much more.