Good News! - More Service Announced to LAX on VAustralia

[SelectSys]

VAustralia is making more announcements in advance of its start of service to the US. LAX-SYD starts Dec 15th and LAX-BNE (announced today) starts in March. Hopefully VAustralia will provide additional market competition to lower prices between the US and Oz - or at least keep airfares from skyrocketing even more with rising oil prices.

 

http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,26058,23968026-5014090,00.html

 

Passengers looking to book air travel for the upcoming Australia cruise season may have a slightly more choice this time around. Hopefully with the Open Skies agreement now in place between the US and Australia these choices will grow.

[nho9504]

VAustralia is making more announcements in advance of its start of service to the US. LAX-SYD starts Dec 15th and LAX-BNE (announced today) starts in March. Hopefully VAustralia will provide additional market competition to lower prices between the US and Oz - or at least keep airfares from skyrocketing even more with rising oil prices.

 

http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,26058,23968026-5014090,00.html

 

Passengers looking to book air travel for the upcoming Australia cruise season may have a slightly more choice this time around. Hopefully with the Open Skies agreement now in place between the US and Australia these choices will grow.

 

Are they going to launch the international service a la Virgin Atlantic, or Virgin Blue - major difference in style of service there.

 

Virgin Atlantic is the upper class TransAtlantic service, while Virgin Blue is the Virgin's version of EasyJet, serving domestic Australia. Virgin America is similar to Virgin Blue, currently runs the Transcon routes in US.

 

At least this would give QF some run of its money if V Australia is going to start a premium service.

[SelectSys]

Are they going to launch the international service a la Virgin Atlantic, or Virgin Blue - major difference in style of service...

Virgin Atlantic

[nho9504]

Virgin Atlantic

 

WooHoo! Let it take some business from QF so there would be some seats available for the FF redemption instead of pnly 1F 1C available on each flight! :D

[Globaliser]

VAustralia is making more announcements in advance of its start of service to the US. LAX-SYD starts Dec 15th and LAX-BNE (announced today) starts in March.

Some bad news for anyone who has booked on an early V Australia service. An announcement today:-

Boeing Strike forces V Australia delay

 

Virgin Blue Airlines Group announced today that an ongoing strike at The Boeing Company’s Seattle plant has forced a delay to the planned 15 December, 2008 launch of its long haul international airline V Australia.

 

The announcement comes after Boeing advised its customers including V Australia that it cannot predict the duration of the dispute and therefore cannot guarantee the delivery date of the airline’s launch aircraft.

 

The manufacturer has ceased to assemble aircraft at the Seattle plant since the strike commenced on 6 September, 2008 when 27,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers downed tools.

 

V Australia has three Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in advanced stage production at the plant. The strike however has no bearing on services operated by Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue or Polynesian Blue.

 

In the continuing absence of a revised aircraft delivery schedule, Virgin Blue said it considered the only responsible course of action was to nominate a revised V Australia launch date of 28 February, 2009 to protect the interests of its Guests. V Australia’s Brisbane-Los Angeles direct services, due to launch on 1 March, 2009, are not affected.

 

Effective from today, V Australia will commence contacting all Guests booked to travel in the Christmas/New Year period from 15 December, 2008 to 16 January, 2009 to offer alternative arrangements.

 

The airline has also suspended further advance ticket sales for travel between 15 December, 2008 and 28 February, 2009 in case the Boeing strike, now in its fourth week, should be prolonged.

 

Virgin Blue said should the industrial dispute be resolved in the short term, the airline would move swiftly to bring forward V Australia’s start-up schedule. The company said the impact of the serious delay would be addressed between Virgin Blue and The Boeing Company at a later date.

 

V Australia said it appreciates the support of those Guests who have already booked on the new airline and whose travel will be unavoidably impacted by the Boeing strike. Accordingly the airline will honour its commitments and offer one of the following alternative arrangements to Guests booked to travel between 15 December, 2008 to 16 January, 2009:

• Guests who rebook on V Australia on or after 1 March, 2009 will be reaccommodated on their choice of flights. As a gesture of goodwill we would also provide a $200 voucher for travel on Virgin Blue’s Australian network.
• A full refund, if our Guests prefer.
• An alternative flight on another airline, arranged at our expense, if our Guests prefer.

[SelectSys]

Sorry to see this labor dispute dragging on so long and affecting the travelling public as well as VAustralia's launch.

 

The machinists must be looking at the Boeing's record order book and the outsourced assembly issues with the 787 to drive a really hard bargain. It is going to take Boeing a long time to recover from this strike.