I have already flown five times this New Year! All flights but one with Virgin Australia Business class around Australia! Thank you Velocity Frequent Flyer seats! So much for less flying in 2012. The exception was an Air Australia economy flight- check out my Trip Report on them – coming up Tuesday 10th.
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Tag Archives for Virgin Australia.
December, 2011 Blog Review
December is one of my quietest travel months. A mere seven flights- three with Etihad and four with the transitioning Virgin Australia (all in front row!). Blog post wise: Dec 31: Best and worst airlines of 2011: Top Spot to Emirates and Bottom spot to Tiger Australia (that will teach them to bump me off a flight!) Dec 21: Flying highlights for 2011 -I effectively flew round the world seven times in 2011 and managed a 7*7 frequency whereby my 737th flight was on a Southwest 737, the 747th on a Qantas 747: 757th on a United 757, then Qantas 767 and Air New Zealand…
Virgin Australia absorbs Pacific Blue and V Australia
Once upon a time (August, 2000 to be exact), a new airline was launched in Australia to challenge the two long standing carriers: Ansett and Qantas. That airline was Virgin Blue. The name was chosen in a competition playing on the Australian custom of calling a redhead Blue or Bluey. I flew Virgin Blue 12 times around Australia and rated them 4.4 out of 5. They initially used a low cost Southwest/Easyjet model with some quirky Australianisms and the Virgin feel. In 2003 Virgin Blue started Pacific Blue, a New Zealand based subsidiary which provided services between…
Qantas-Anyone worried?
As a Qantas very frequent flyer, I am watching Qantas in disputes with three unions. There is the classic “blame the management” by the unions and the classic “blame the unions” by Qantas spokespeople. For passengers, there’s inconvenience of cancelled flights. For the tourist industry, theres a fear of loss of passengers at this crucial time. For Qantas there is presumably the economic impact of revenue losses. I am interested that Virgin Australia is adding capacity to cope and advertising special fares. Since their conversion from discount to full service carrier, they have apparently snared 13 per cent of the Australian…
Virgin Australia Velocity Changes Analysed
Love the updated Velocity Rewards Frequent Flyer Program unveiled Thursday by Virgin Australia. Already Qantas has responded with media advertisements promising exciting changes to their program. The competition in Australia is starting a new round. I am currently a Gold flyer with Qantas and Virgin so my focus is on the Gold benefits. At the end of this post, I will paste a table comparing the two programs. Please let me know what I leave out. The eight immediate features I like about Velocity Rewards: seemingly generous access to award seats Subject to space availability, Velocity Platinum and Gold members are welcome…
The Slide of Qantas vs The Rise of Virgin
News comes that Singapore Airlines and Virgin Australia will code share on each other services and passengers will enjoy reciprocal FF arrangements and lounge access. Virgin Australia also have a relationship with Delta (Skyteam) and Malaysia (about to join One World). Is this a step toward Virgin Australia becoming a Star Alliance partner in Australia? We continue to move back to the days when we had two full service airlines Qantas and Ansett in the One World and Star Alliance networks. I blogged about this in May. The impressive changes at Virgin Australia (albeit not yet…
Virgin America, America’s Best Airline to Dallas
The Virgin love in continues with my Virgin America flight from LAX to Dallas Fort Worth. I currently rate this airline as the best in the USA, slightly ahead of JetBlue. I wish Australia’s Virgin Blue was as good as Virgin America. The Aussie version started as a discount carrier and is evolving into Australias’ second mainline carrier so its history is very different. Check In The star difference hits you right from the start with Virgin American. For example, how many other airlines have “We are Family“ playing at Check in? Was fascinated that…
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