IN BRIEF | Virgin Australia goes head-to-head with QantasLink on yet another regional route this May, with the airline kicking off direct flights between Sydney and Tamworth.
Served by an ATR-72 turboprop aircraft with 68 economy seats, the airline will fly between the cities six times each week from Monday May 25.
Excluding Saturdays, VA1091 pushes back in Sydney at 1:55pm to reach Tamworth at 3pm. The aircraft then spends half an hour on the ground before taking to the skies again at 3:30pm as VA1092 and returning to Sydney at 4:35pm.
“Tamworth is both a thriving commercial hub and a tourist destination,” said Virgin Australia CEO John Borghetti, adding that the new flights would “support the ongoing development of Tamworth as an important regional destination.”
QantasLink currently flies up to six return services each day between Sydney and Tamworth using a variety of Dash 8 aircraft – also in an all-economy layout.
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Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
05 Feb 2013
Total posts 54
I assume this is Virgin utilising some spare capacity in the middle of the day to test the waters. I can't see Qantas being too worried about Virgin launching 6 services per week to Tamworth outside peak business travel hours. But if this is the spearhead of a larger assault on Sydney-Tamworth and other NSW regional routes, then we may have a new capacity war.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
19 Mar 2014
Total posts 567
The regional capacity war!
I've often noticed, and completely understand market forces, but where an airline has a monopoly on a regional route, they charge like wounded bulls. Bring in the slightest sniff of an alternative and it reverts to a more reasonable figure.
I think consumers struggle with that. Anyone can handle a premium charge for a service but trippling the cost in the absence of competition is taking the p!ss!
Rex and Qantaslink seem to be the main offenders. This is good news for good people of Tamworth and the country music aficionados!
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
06 Dec 2012
Total posts 170
Great news! The airport at Orange just went through an almost $20 million expansion/redevlopment which including a new terminal, runway extension to allow for larger aircraft and improved taxi ways. The council spruiked the benefits of all this would mean larger aircraft such as Fokker 100 and E190's could land at orange! All this is great except Rex is still the only operator. A flexible return ticket to Sydney is over $800. Don't understand why the upgrade happened if they are not trying to get Qantas Link and Virgin to see if they are interested.
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