Category: Airlines

The inaugural flight VA7 took off aboard Qatar Airways’ leased 777-300ER A7-BEK at around 5:35pm on Monday. Melbourne is the final major Australian gateway to receive Virgin’s Doha services, following Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth in June.

The flights, operating a total of 34,650 additional seats during the season, will operate until March next year on 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, initially three times per week but ramping up to four per week from 14 December.

The Malaysian flag carrier has commenced five A330-300 flights per week, with the first MH135 service touching down aboard 9M-MTO just before 6:30am on Saturday. The service will add more than 75,000 inbound seats to Brisbane each year.

The update, pushed out by Airbus on Saturday after a recent incident involving a JetBlue A320, was required on 34 of Jetstar’s 85 A320/21 family aircraft, and caused significant delays and disruptions while the low-cost carrier rushed to implement it.