Thursday, March 28, 2013

Virgin Australia Pulling Their Socks Up


Last week I flew up to Port Macquarie. I have been flying instead of driving because now that it is dual carriageway it is a boring 3 and a half hours. Also, if you book in advance you can usually get up there and back for about $150.


I decided to fly with Virgin instead of Qantas or QantasLink as they call it up there, as it was substantially cheaper and I had points to burn one-way.

They have really picked up their game. They actually serve what you would call a light snack and drinks on the flight. In the past there has been a cost attached to this.
The other thing that has changed is they are now flying ATR 72’s. I’ve never been on one of these so this was a new experience. We boarded through the rear doors as the plane has a cargo hold in the front of the plane behind the cockpit.

The flight I took was VA1187, which departed Sydney just before 9am, about 15 minutes late. The plane was only half full and got us up to cruising altitude quite quickly.


It was at that time we were then given what I thought was a pretty substantial snack for such a short flight. Flight time on this plane was just under an hour.  The meal included tea, coffee, juice or soft drink, and a cupcake. Pretty considerable if you think back a few months where you had to pay for a bottle of water.

We landed making up some of the time that we were delayed out of Sydney. A lot of people boycott Virgin, but as you can see their offering is almost on par with QantasLink.


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