Virgin Australia irons out Melbourne-Hong Kong flight schedule
By Chris C., August 1 2017
Virgin Australia will straighten out its flight schedules between Melbourne and Hong Kong to offer consistent departure and arrival times throughout the week.
From October 30 2017 until March 24 2018, flight VA87 will leave Melbourne at 10:55am on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays – the service continuing to run five times each week – reaching Hong Kong at 5:35pm on the same days.
This replaces the current, varying schedule from Melbourne to Hong Kong where flights depart at 10:25am on Mondays, 9:40am on Wednesdays, and 12:35am on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Return flights from Hong Kong to Melbourne remain unchanged, with VA86 being wheels-up at 7:50pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays ahead of an 8:15am arrival the following calendar day.
“We know a consistent departure time from both Melbourne and Hong Kong is important to our guests who are travelling for both leisure and business,” said Virgin Australia General Manager of Network Management, Hope Antzoulatos.
“We will continue to review our schedule beyond March 2018 and will update with any changes at a later date,” Antzoulatos added.
Virgin Australia commenced flights to Hong Kong on July 5 2017 using its Airbus A330-200 aircraft, fitted with its latest ‘The Business’ seats in business class, offering fully-flat beds and direct aisle access from every business class seat.
AusBT review: Virgin Australia A330 business class, Melbourne-Hong Kong
Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
12 Jun 2011
Total posts 148
Someone at VA finally gets it! Now for a daily schedule and it'll have a chance!
20 Sep 2012
Total posts 76
It's not that they didn't 'get it' before: but HKG is heavily slot constrained. They're obviously been able to negotiate some different slots.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
12 Jun 2011
Total posts 148
Oh absolutely, though sometimes with VA you do question if they're doing everything possible to make a route profitable ;-)
31 Mar 2016
Total posts 619
@ tm_smile:
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
12 Jun 2011
Total posts 148
@FLX1 Fully aware of that. Did mean it with a bit more of a tongue in cheek than what may be perceived... New routes are not VA's forte, just saying.
13 May 2016
Total posts 31
Fantastic news! I can't wait to fly this new route!
12 Dec 2012
Total posts 1031
Those are the dates for the northern winter schedule season. The IATA slot conference for that season would have been the first chance VA had for HKG slots since they were too late with planning and approving the route to get HKG slots at the conference for the current season.
The slot times they currently have would have been what ever was left over that HKG could give them.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
15 Jan 2013
Total posts 48
Regardless on what slots were available and when, It just adds to the perception that Virgin is very unorganised and chaotic. With this not so smooth new route launch, axing of the Europe stepping stone and along with the LAX lounge debacle, they need to be very careful what they do in the future, slow down, take client experience into consideration, otherwise customers will continue to lose trust and confidence, that type of customer sentiment costs a lot more money to get back, a lot more than the cost of just doing properly in the first place...
Velocity
23 Feb 2016
Total posts 21
So if I wanted to go onto Europe via VA87 to Hong Kong, are the connecting flights on Virgin Atlantic not matching up well?
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
15 Jan 2013
Total posts 48
It's more than a 6 hour stop over for that connection, with VA 87 arriving 5:35pm and VS 207 leaving at 11:55pm
31 Mar 2016
Total posts 619
@Philby:
Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer
17 Nov 2014
Total posts 101
As a frequent commuter between Sydney and Hong Kong, I am disappointed that VA89 is being axed. This service acts as the only alternative for red eye departure from Australia direct to Hong Kong than the Cathay Pacific. It also serves Hong Kong people well as we are time poor and we cannot afford to spend the whole day on the plane. With the red eye departures from Australia on Cathay Pacific is always full and hard to get cheap fares, I wonder why they are axing this service and now they are forcing passengers to catch other airlines if they want to save time to go to Hong Kong immediately after work.
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