Virgin Australia concerns
 

As a Virgin Australia customer I'm concerned in what seems a lack in strategy. I have listed some notable ones of late.

- The announcement of cancelling PER-AUH

- Tigerair Bali flights fiasco

- Strange lounge arrangements for customers on International flights

- 737MAX deferment

I really like VA and really hope they weather 'whatever storm' they're in.

Cheers -TAE

Why not also mention:

- Getting rid of the popular Embraer even though some leases go to 2022

- Putting VA pax onto ancient F100's with no board connect or business class

- Making 'tactical cancellations' for a dozen flights a day due to lack of crew

- Failing to make money off the ATR, which has been a cash cow for every other airline

- Taking 6 years to introduce an EFB, and still stuff up the installation

- Have you staff on C scale conditions, but expect them to deliver gold plated customer service

And the list goes on....

Be glad you are not a VA shareholder...

Virgin Blue will soon be Virgin Who? They should have stuck with what they were good at and that was being a fairly solid if unremarkable LCC.

Look to the UK. easyJet didn't try and compete with BA by trying to become BA. They kept it simple and have grown profitably in a cut throat competitive environment. Now BA are trying to become EasyJet.

VA are trying to compete with QF by trying to become QF. It hasn't worked. They should go back to keeping it simple. There's nothing wrong with be a run of the mill LCC if it keeps you in profit and your shareholders happy.

Solution
 

Solution

1 brand
3 classes

Roll Tiger into VA
737 / A320 fleet
8-12 business class seats up front

80-100 economy seats
32' pitch, meals, baggage, lounge, FFPs included

60-80 "BLUE" budget seats up back (Tiger pricing)
29"-30" pitch, buy meals, pay for excess baggage, no FFPs

1 management team
1 admin team
1 marketing team
etc

Fuller flights
Upgrade opportunities
Easier scheduling, particularly on thinner routes

Think of it NOT that VA flights would have discount seats and therefore less revenue

Think of it like
Adding premium economy seats into Tiger frames
From reports, Tiger is making a little bit of profit
Adding better revenue seats should turn small gains into big gains right ?

Deano969, I think that "little profit" TT makes will evaporate later this year when their maintenance costs go up.

Spot on Deano

Where were all you genii when the CEO's job was up for grabs? VA has $1.5 Billion in the bank. What could possibly go wrong?:rolleyes:

I think Brett Godfrey floated the idea of splitting economy (Lcc/normal economy) in either 07 or 08.

Flew with SAS last year,inter europe, and they have exactly what Deano is saying!

They have Business class,the standard euro type, just 3 seats with middle one blocked off,but very good leg room, catering, lounge access etc,
Then they have Economy plus, more legroom than standard Y, meal service,ffp and free checked baggage, for anyone paying top tier economy fares or their gold frequent flyers.
Lounge access on economy plus, only for gold frequent flyers,

Then they have standard economy at the back, less legroom, pay for meal and checked baggage,but they did offer coffee tea or water for free!
They also had a cabin divider so they could reduce the number of Economy plus seats if required, which gave some economy passengers a bit more leg room.

The big advantage for SAS business travellers, by not splitting brands, is more frequency!
So on all the routes were Virgin and Tiger both fly at the moment, all those Tiger flights would be branded Virgin, capacity increase for Virgin brand at no cost!

While I agree that someone needs to kick out the 'game changer' and the rest of the money wasting board, SAS is closer to Air NZ than VAH in many respects including fleet simplification and renewal, population serviced, lounge renewal and introduction, destinations, geographical location and sustainability programs (both part of Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group).

Scandinavian Airlines 2015, Annual Report with Sustainability Review November 2014 <http://www.sasgroup.net/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/02/SAS-Annual-Report-2014-2015-B.pdf>

Back on topic, something has to be done soon. Unfortunately I am a shareholder and spend every day watching JB et al. wheel out every excuse under the sun why they aren't making money when everyone else is. :ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

I see the recent announcement regarding PER-AUH as a positive move. The demand for travellers using the airports in the sandpit as a connection to Europe is declining with most travellers still preferring the Asia stop over. Why start a service, loose money on it and then stop it, best to pull the pin before the start. EY already have a daily B787 PER -AUH service, which is sufficient for the current demand, without the need for VA's 3 days a week service.

VA will now have another airframe to continue A330 transcon services as well as sufficient number of A330's for it's planed expansion into Asia.

With regard to the 737MAX deferment, all airlines defer orders. Look at QF they deferred the B787 orders until this year and have just announced they are delaying the A320NEOs on order for Jetstar. From a passengers perspective there are no being cabin enhancements in both the MAX and the NEOs and from the a fuel saving costs the benefits of the new engines etc are next to nothing on the golden triangle routes. The fuel saving coots kick in on the longer sectors. So why pay a premium price (above the cost of the current aircraft) for the MAX and NEO for no immediate gain. Airlines such as Fiji Air who are also taking the MAX, will see immediate fuel saving gain as the majority of their flights are over 3 hours.

And for those who thing QF's B787 Perth to London direct flights will be a great experience for the passengers have a read of this.

https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetal...ything-dreamy/

Someone should mention to Ben Groundwater upon looking at the seatmap that those 3 toilets will service the 42 business class seats and the other 4 will service the plebs.

I agree it's a good decision to bin the PER-AUH route, but it shouldn't have existed/they shouldn't have sold seats to begin with. If the ex-CEO can't get fuel hedging right in this climate, they won't get fuel saving anyway.

Now I'm not saying I want the CEO's job, but I'm also not getting paid his or any board member's wage - these are people who SHOULD have known better, and are paid to.

RC: according to this article, the premium economy pax share the J class lavs:

https://www.ausbt.com.au/first-photo...-economy-seats

I agree with your comments re the PER-AUH route. So perplexing to cancel it before it even commences; makes you wonder what they were thinking to offer it in the first place.

According to that article, yes. According to every other aircraft Qantas currently operate, no.

When you look at the 747, the pax to toilet ratio is higher, and they seem to cope just fine. The only issue QF currently have is the 330's that have been converted from JQ that only have one lav in business at the front (Que the 20 odd people trying to change back from their PJ's at top of descent).

Do business class passengers pee more often than economy class passengers? Maybe they do due to the quantity of alcohol consumed.

Sorry RC, but which QF reconfigured A330s have a Premium Economy cabin ?

Sorry Mach, I meant the 74's... Clearly not what I wrote. I'd be surprised if they do let them use it but stranger things have happened.

No problem RC; we have all done it. But back to the topic of Virgin Australia, today's daily update from Airline Route indicates that Malindo Air intends to fly daily 737-800 services from BNE-DPS-KUL from the end of this month. It all sounds a bit preliminary, but may add pressure on VA's DPS operations after the TT shemozzle. I think that would also be the only direct service between BNE and Malaysia.

"Malindo Air in the GDS and the week of 26FEB17’s OAG Schedules Analyser update filed preliminary schedule for Brisbane, tentatively scheduled to commence on 31MAR17. The airline plans to operate Kuala Lumpur – Denpasar – Brisbane routing on daily basis, on board Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

OD157 KUL1805 – 2110DPS2200 – 0540+1BNE 738 D
OD158 BNE0715 – 1145DPS1245 – 1545KUL 738 D

Reservation is currently not available on its website. Service on Kuala Lumpur – Denpasar routing is also to see an increase from 2 to 4 daily, based on current listing, instead of from 2 to 3 daily."

I just don't get why Virgin fly SYD-DPS but not MEL-DPS. Surely the demand is there? Doesn't make sense...