Virgin Australia Boosts Domestic Capacity

Virgin Australia has revealed an expanded schedule of as part of its accelerated capacity growth plan for major corporate, resources sector and leisure routes. The airline confirms it will introduce additional services on major routes between Melbourne and Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney as well as on regional links between Brisbane and Cairns, Gladstone, Rockhampton and Whitsunday Coast (Proserpine). The additional flights will be introduced from the week commencing February 13, 2012.

“We are adding extra services across a range of routes to meet increased demand from corporate and leisure travellers,” said Merren McArthur,” Group Executive of Alliances, Network and Yield, Virgin Australia. “We will be able to offer travellers the increased convenience of more flights, more often, across the country’s busiest capital city trunk routes, as well as on growing resources sector and leisure routes in Queensland.”

The new flights comprise an additional weekday rotation between Adelaide and Melbourne, taking the total number of flights offered between the two cities up to 10 per day or 130 per week; a 13th daily service between Brisbane and Melbourne (up to 174 flights a week) and one additional daily rotation between Melbourne and Sydney, increasing its schedule to 31 flights a day or 392 a week.

From Brisbane an additional weekday flight will be offered to Rockhampton (up to 78 a week) and Whitsunday Coast (up to 24 a week), six more weekly services will be added to the Brisbane – Cairns route increasing the schedule to 80 a week, while a new Sunday service, operated using an ATR 72 turboprop, will be added between Brisbane and Gladstone and will bring weekly links between the two cities to 34.

Virgin Australia is currently the second largest carrier in the domestic Australian market and this month is offering 2,790 weekly flights providing 363,368 seats. This is a 27.2 per cent share of the total weekly capacity of more than 1.3 million seats. Australia’s national carrier Qantas dominates its home market with over 4,279 weekly flights proving 571,392 seats, a 42.7 per cent share of the capacity.