Virgin’s Doha flights bring fresh competition to the skies

And the plane might be swapped out and no Q-Suite

In theory, that could happen on any Qatar flight.  No airline ever guarantees that equipment will never be swapped for operational reasons.

And to be perfectly honest, if Qatar is going to protect any QSuite routes, it will be the Australian ones.

The article quite clearly says the $10K figure is a return fare so I'm  not sure why you say one-way.

@Reeves35 On VA Business Flyer I'm getting between $17k and $18k for a return flight 1st of July 2025 and return 15th of July 2025 Sydney to London. Show me where you can get a $10k return flight.  Looks like the article has also been updated from my first post as well.

Our $10k figure was based on the same mid-August travel period as used to compare the price of other airlines, looking at the lowest fare across specific travel dates. We deliberately chose to avoid July because that's still a peak period for northern European travel, and with the VA flights going on sale today this would likely be a period where inventory could be snapped up fast, whereas mid-August was a bit more 'reasonable' as a benchmark.

David, I see the reward flights are popping up, around the 166,000 Velocity points and also just under $900.00 taxes. 

They need to copy the Kris Flyer model of 355 days out at a certain time of day to release flights.

Agreed on that UUAA.

I think the challenge for VA might be that its flights are still six months away so can they make reward seats available today for 355 days, i.e. June 2026, or can they only go as far ahead as today's calendar which would be December 2025?

Qantas seems to have moved to releasing seats in batches rather than all at one almost a year ahead, I sort of like that approach because it makes it easier for everyone to have a crack at them, all the same it would be nice to have some release 'schedule' say the 1st of every month or the first day of every three months.

Having 355 days out makes it easy to plan even 300 days out would be good, pot luck just doesn't work.

Hmmm, just priced a VA SYD-LHR return J-class flight, departing Thursday October 16th (VA6131/6106), leaving Tuesday October 25th (VA6183/6130) - A$12,871.  Return J-class airfares over $10,000 cross my threshold of 'price indifference' (forgive the Marketing701 jargon).  This airfare is on the downwards shoulder of the 'high' season.  

Somebody at Global Southbank HQ (GSHQ) needs to be a little more focused, or have a longer attention span.     

I see this morning business on the 1st of July to the 15th of July, Sydney to Rome is $8,8320.00 person. I,d pay that price, just got to convince the wife now after she said she was all holidayed out.

So you read it 5 times, or did you contradict yourself ?   :-)

I think the article has been rewritten a couple of times after comments were placed :)

Hi UpUpAndAway – while nothing was revised based on comments, what did happen is that the initial information shared by Virgin Australia changed, so the article had to be revised 'live' and after that, some additional info added on an iterative basis. All made for rather busy early morning start!

Agreed, Etihad's B787 or Singapore's A350 is a much better hard product !

I don't reckon either of those hold a candle to the Qsuites, especially not the SQ A350.

Okay, so how much were you realistically thinking these Virgin flights would cost or should cost? How much lower do you realistically think they should be?

I realistically expected this pricing, but I wouldn't pay that price for an inferior hard product, which for me is not addressed by a fantastic soft product. You can't polish a cow pat.

I felt it was interesting that one of the arguments was allowing VA flights to Doha would lower fares which was never going to happen. Australia has 2 premium priced airlines.

You think the Qsuite is "an inferior hard product", a "cow pat"? Maybe you are getting business class mixed up with SQ A380 first class. Which other business class flying between Australia and Europe would you suggest is so much better than the Qsuite?

So you're complaining about the price and "We now have 2 premium priced airlines" but at the same time you say "I realistically expected this pricing," make your mind up. My 2c is that any world-class business class like this, and that covers both the Qsuite as hard product along with the meals & service as "soft product", which starts off under $10,000 SYD-LHR is a pretty good deal.

What  a comment on the year. Who remembers J seats to Europe not long ago of $20-$40k. 

10k return is for the worlds best business class - Q suite - how you can loop that into an “inferior Hard product”?? It stakes up against every other airline - and smashes the Australian premium airline’s offerings.

As for looking at other cheaper options- 

-Asian airlines are not in the same league bar SQ, and the cheap ones don’t offer the destinations in Europe and those that do are code-shares with third party airlines - experience falls away.

-Turkish your talking a “milk run” flight to Europe 3-4 sectors - not relevant, these are direct services, in best J seat on planet for $10k - the other comparisons are not in the same league.

B-T I agree 100%,

Copy the domestic pricing model for business and economy as the plane fills up the prices rise, also drop in reward seats a the cheap rate early. And those Forever Platinums get reward seats appearing out of thin air.

$7,800.00 return business class Sydney to European locations, Rome, London etc. otherwise I'd be looking at Turkish Airlines.

Points wise 166,000 plus under $900.00 taxes is ok when you compare options.

300-355 days out pre-purchase on both points and dollars 

Outside of Oman Air which have some flights for around $6000 or Turkish around $7000 in August provided you are OK with two stops each way, I can't find anything under $9K.  There are some other cheap ones around on some of the consolidator websites but, when you look into them, you find the are mixed fares with some sectors in Y.   

For around $9K you can get QR or SQ.  Depending on the day, you can find QR a few hundred cheaper than VA for the same flights but it reverses on other days.

If VA had any truly creative thinkers in their uber opulent Global Service Head Quarters (GSHQ) up there at Southbank, they'd price AUS-GB business class fares always at under $10,000 when purchased at least six (6) months out, with a no quibbles full refund in 14 days if cancelled within five (5) days of purchase.  The QR metal are big planes with quite a lot of J-class seats (28-42 on 777-300ER/A350-900s, 48 upstairs on the A380).  When you consider that there will be potentially 6-8 VA-coded QR planes leaving Australia each and every day, that's quite a significant cashflow boost if marketed intelligently*.  

Hi syd_flyer – yes, quite right, thanks for picking that up and apologies, this was all being done around 6.15am as new info was coming up. I'm hearing of more reward seats being sighted or at least remaining ex-BNE, be interesting to see how PER shapes up if early birds over there got the worm!

Weird hey

Revnue based status earning but only when it benefits VA. Velocity now seems to only be for our loyalty to Virgin, not the other way around. 

Check again. Plenty of sub-$10k retrun fares when I checked late on 13/12

Thanks Airlie, what I meant was there are flights available just under $10K but if you proceed and try to book you cannot select seats which is a big thing for me, even though these flights are said to offer Q Suites all to often Qatar swap and change and you end up in a non Q Suite product.

No, check again and you'll find QR A380 still on the evening flights to and from Perth In September and October. VA/QR 77W does the late morning arrivals and mid-afternoon departures.