Virgin Australia relaunches Melbourne - Los Angeles flights
By David Flynn, April 4 2017
Virgin Australia is once again flying between Melbourne and Los Angeles, adding competition to a route currently exclusive to Qantas and United Airlines.
The flights will run five days a week from today on Virgin's Boeing 777-300ER jets, which now sport all-new business class seats (above) and a swanky business class bar (below).
AusBT review: Virgin Australia 'The Business', Sydney-Los Angeles
VA23 will depart Melbourne at 11.30am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, to reach Los Angeles at 9am that same morning.
The VA24 return leg will fly out from Los Angeles at 8.55pm every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday for a 5.45am arrival into Melbourne two days later.
Virgin trumps Qantas, United on Melbourne-LAX
The airline's investment in upgrading its Boeing 777 fleet will give it a substantial edge over incumbents Qantas and United Airlines.
While Qantas and United both sport a minimum 2-2-2 seating layout in their business class cabins, Virgin can – and certainly will – trumpet that every passenger on its Boeing 777 flights enjoys direct access to the aisle.
Virgin's The Business seat is also wider, longer in bed more and boasts more storage space around the seat.
And of course, there's that inflight bar...
The biggest drawback for business travellers will be Virgin's schedule, which at five flights a week won't line up quite as neatly as United's daily Boeing 787-9 roster or Qantas' nine flights per week (daily on the Airbus A380 plus two more on the Boeing 747).
Also in the Red Roo's favour is that it will have the only first class cabin on the long Melbourne-Los Angeles route.
Virgin Australia has confirmed that business class travellers and top-tier frequent flyers will have access to the Etihad First and Business Class lounge in Melbourne, considered to be one of the best international lounges in Australia.
Prior to the flight home, business class passengers plus Velocity Gold members in other cabins can visit the Etihad First and Business Class lounge in Los Angeles, while Velocity Platinum members are welcomed into the Emirates First and Business Class lounge.
Brisbane drops to six days a week
Virgin axed its Melbourne-LAX service in October 2014 in order to boost th Brisbane-Los Angeles route to a daily roster.
However, Brisbane-LAX will be cut back to six days a week from mid-April, with VA7 no longer running on Mondays (as of April 10) and VA8 dropped from Friday (as of April 7).
There'll also be a timetable tweak, with Sunday's VA7 flights now becoming an overnight service leaving Brisbane at 9.30pm to reach Los Angeles at 5.35pm (as of April 9). That definitely sounds better for beating jetlag!
Saturday's VA6 flights out of Los Angeles are also being retimed, with an 11.15am departure and a 6.15pm arrival into Brisbane (as of April 8).
Virgin will also launch Melbourne-Hong Kong flights from July 5, 2017 on an Airbus A330-200 jet sporting the same business class seats but sans bar.
David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Mar 2012
Total posts 233
Excellent news for Melb folk. I would've gone for one step further and made that later Brisbane departiure and earlier return a daily affair. Which would have allowed daily flights from Bris, Syd and Melb. I'm sure they have their reasons though and looking forward to try the new timings.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards Plantium
19 Jun 2013
Total posts 119
Also great news for people in Adelaide. Sydney connection time was always very tight to get onto VA1 but Melbourne being closer as well as 11:30am departure is perfect
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
25 Jan 2013
Total posts 240
Happy days! I always thought it was a mistake to cancel it. MEL to LAX seems a particularly popular route and I'd have thought it always better to compete with QF and UA out of MEL.
20 May 2015
Total posts 581
Virgin clearly have the best Business product on the route, as well as the best Economy, Economy Plus and Premium, so they'll bring some needed competition absolutely. I hope this turns out to be successful for them.
UA
30 Jun 2015
Total posts 35
So I am a UA million miler based in Melbourne with 30 years experience(tolerance) of United's good, bad and indifferent trans-Pacific flight service. I just flew VA Mel-SYD-LAX return and have another booking in December. How do they compare? VA's catering appears outstanding, but frankly failed to impress on both flights, as did their IFE selection (great screen, poor selection) and rubbish headphones, however they mostly win on the direct aisle access, bed, crew and that bar( noting the Single Malt was MIA for both legs and has been for some months apparently). VA's connection service from Domestic to International in Sydney was anxiety inducing, taking over an hour with arrival (outside customs and security) well after boarding was scheduled to start. No TSA Pre-clear was provided for on-wards US flights, though Delta domestic did it on the return.
The return of the Melbourne service solves some of this, but the arrival time in LAX makes for poor on-wards connections. Equally, VA's game plan is like their domestic evening service when you get pretzels in lieu of a decent, by airline standards, hot meal on QA.
The UA 787 service to Melbourne is better timed and likely the best experience you will ever have on a United flight anywhere. The UA Polaris soft product kicks in early December improving the catering and bedding, and wishfully we'll see the new seating and direct aisle access in 24 months at which point VA has only the bar and crew to leverage. (Remember the pretzels? VA has lost the plot.)
28 May 2016
Total posts 128
One of the reasons VA stated why they pulled this route initially was that the 77W has to take a payload hit which made the route somewhat economical.
14 Jun 2013
Total posts 353
Another reason as the cost of crewing ex-Melbourne, given that VA is based in Sydney and Brisbane. Either way, good to see that things have changed and that VA now sees enough market share to come out of Melbourne.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
21 Mar 2017
Total posts 37
They've opened up a longhaul crew base in Melbourne now. Unfortunately for the crew, overall it means less $$ for them as they've lost their 1 night australia layover and suffer 1 night LA's. No thanks!!!!
Qantas
13 Jun 2015
Total posts 141
About time they restart VA flights from MEL-LAX. This would have a good connection from LAX to USA and Canada.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Jul 2016
Total posts 108
They need more 777s to maintain and grow the VA routes because at the moment, they need to remove a route to open a route.
30 Jun 2016
Total posts 3
It will be interesting to see if this pushes up prices on the BNE-LAX service with QF and VA with 300 odd seats taken out of the market...
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 Feb 2015
Total posts 382
It will certainly help load factors, but in saying that, I think Air Canada's daily flights from BNE to Vancouver have added additional competition to the North American market.
24 Aug 2011
Total posts 1209
Load factors on BNE-LAX may not improve as much as you'd think given a lot of MEL originating pax previously transitted onto VA7 in BNE. This will no longer be the case.
VA Platinum
21 Nov 2013
Total posts 20
I go to California a few times a year for business (and fun) and frankly would MUCH prefer the afternoon arrival. That Sunday evening flight out of BNE sounds amazing, and one I will be looking forward to trying when the time comes. Understand it doesn't work for people with connections, but if you're staying west side it's great.
11 Feb 2016
Total posts 15
Yet more flights from Australia to LAX. They should have sent this flight to SFO.
QF
03 Jul 2015
Total posts 22
B777 would have to be the noisiest plane in the sky. And espcially for shake, rattle, and roll.
26 Feb 2014
Total posts 14
Do they fly syd hkg?..that would be ideal if they're dropping the syd auh flight and can connect onwards with virgin Atlantic.....just saying..
05 May 2016
Total posts 619
This change is good for competition.
Hopefully it puts some pressure on QANTAS to refurbish its A380 product with business seats with direct aisle access.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
10 Dec 2016
Total posts 43
Having experienced the Emirates lounge last week in LA as a VA flyer I was very impressed. Its so much better than the small Etihad lounge which is crowded and frankly a bit tatty. Cant wait to be able to fly Melb/LA again on VA rather than through SYD or Bris
Etihad - Etihad Guest
19 Sep 2013
Total posts 16
Does anyone know which is the better lounge in LAX. EK or EY for a VA Platinum FF?
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
10 Dec 2016
Total posts 43
Simple Emirates Lounge is best bet for VA Paltinum
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
15 Aug 2012
Total posts 171
Qantas will be starting 787 to L.A. Later this year and the A380's will be getting refurbs as previously mentioned. So hard product competition is just around the corner but with more frequency and excellent lounges both ends especially with qantas first.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 May 2011
Total posts 362
Trust Virgin to absolutely find a way to complicate things. Changing one BNE-LAX flight a day to an afternoon departure. So an inconsistent schedule like their MEL-HKG flights. Well done Virgin, you never cease to amaze me with your ability to make things as confusing and complicated as possible
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
30 May 2013
Total posts 372
Couldn't agree more.
03 May 2013
Total posts 672
This airline jumps all over the place strategy wise. Always a few steps behind trying desperately to tread water as competition intensifies and their books look bleak.
12 Dec 2012
Total posts 1027
No VA23 on Friday and no VA24 on Monday, yet flights the other way the same day?
Does this match up with the BNE flights?
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