Australia’s second-largest airline, Virgin Australia has announced it endeavours to re-enter the regional airline market in Australia through a partnership with existing, successful Australian regional carrier Link Airways (formerly known as Corporate Air).
Through its new partnership, Link Airways will operate its Swedish made Saab 340B on behalf of Virgin Australia using Virgin Australia flight numbers on selected routes. The announcement comes just a week after Virgin Australia, under the new ownership of Bain Capital and leadership of former Jetstar CEO Jayne Hrdlicka released the news it had posted its first after-tax profit in over ten years of AUD$3.6 billion.
As part of the airline’s restructuring in late-2020, much of Virgin Australia’s regional network was scrapped along with the ATR 72 aircraft which operated these services along the Eastern Seaboard of Australia. Since October 2020, Virgin Australia has largely not operated any regional flights on Australia’s east coast with the exception of selected Queensland and Northern Territory flights operated out of Brisbane through a partnership with Alliance Airlines using Fokker 70 and Fokker 100 aircraft.
However, this is set to change as Virgin Australia plan to re-enter a key Australian regional route in partnership with regional airline Link Airways. According to the airline’s press release, Virgin Australia will once again begin flights on the highly contested route between Sydney and Canberra from the 30th of January 2022.
The new flights will operate up to nine times per day on weekdays using Link Airways’ 34-seat Saab 340B aircraft. The new flights will account for an additional 53 flights per week on the already hotly contested route. The route is currently served by Rex Airlines using its Saab 340B aircraft and QantasLink using a mix of Dash 8 Q300, Dash 8 Q400 and Boeing 717 aircraft.
Despite being operated by Link Airways aircraft and crew, the new Sydney to Canberra flights will carry Virgin Australia flight numbers. Passengers will receive complimentary tea, coffee and water onboard as is the case with Virgin Australia’s mainline services; however, given these are short, regional flights there will be no buy-on-board menu available for passengers.
According to the airline’s press release, Virgin Australia is continuing to evaluate new destinations and routes to connect Australians, including regional and short-haul international destinations. CEO of Virgin Australia, Jayne Hrdlicka shared the excitement, stating “Canberra is a very important destination for Virgin Australia and we’re excited to re-launch a Sydney to Canberra service.” Hrdlicka also mentioned the new flights are targeting business travellers moving between the two cities.
Link Airways Chief Executive, Andrew Major stated that the company was looking forward to partnering up with Virgin Australia connecting Canberra and Sydney. Major also added his airline was very well placed to operate the new flights being an airline headquartered in Canberra since 1972 and is the second-largest independent carrier in Australia.
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- Source: https://aeronewsx.com/virgin-australia-re-enters-regional-market-with-link-airways-partnership/
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