Virgin Atlantic cut SYD flights

[Brandon Giacomin]

From http://www.ausbt.com.au/virgin-atlan...g-kong-flights

Virgin Atlantic will axe its Sydney-Hong Kong flights from May 5 and exit the Australian market.

A statement issued by the airline attributes the move to "increasing costs and a challenging economic environment" which "have affected revenues and the route is no longer considered profitable."

However, the Richard Branson-backed airline will continue to operate services between London Heathrow and Hong Kong.

"Despite the best efforts of our employees, external factors such as increasing costs and a weakening Australian dollar have affected our profitability" said Virgin Atlantic CEO Craig Kreeger.

“These are still difficult times for the airline industry and as part of our strategy to operate more efficiently, we need to deploy our aircraft to routes with the right level of demand to be financially viable.”

Any passengers who are travelling after May 5 and are concerned about their travel arrangements should contact Virgin Atlantic or their travel agent to discuss alternate options.

High hopes a decade ago...

Virgin Atlantic began flying to Sydney in June 2004 and as recently as July last year said it was considering introducing flights from Melbourne to Hong Kong or adding a second daily service from Sydney.

"Melbourne is definitely a good option" said Virgin Atlantic's then-General Manager Australia, Luke Fisher, "or whether we consolidate with our Sydney focus and move to a second operation, it is really a 50-50 consideration."

Virgin Atlantic reported an uptick in travel from Australia to the UK on the back of the Qantas-Emirates alliance.

While Virgin Atlantic travellers out of Sydney were once evenly distributed between those who hopped off at Hong Kong and those who continued to London, Fisher reported that "now there is more London than Hong Kong. And I think that is a direct result of the changes that Qantas and Emirates have made."

"There are still people that prefer Hong Kong as a stopover or transit point" Fisher continued, drawing a contrast against Qantas' shift from Singapore to Dubai as the pivot point for its European flights.

"We have seen a transition that more people, when they are going to the UK, would prefer to go this way, whether they are stopping over in Hong Kong or going direct."

A survey conducted by Qantas in March last year saw Hong Kong rated just behind Dubai and Singapore as the most popular transit point or stopover city for flights between Australia and Europe.

[Ryan N]

Hard to compete against CX on this route, with 4 flights against 1. Flight times into HKG weren't that great either if your final destination was HKG.

[Shaal L]

last flight out of syd tomorrow

[David C]

The honour goes to G-VWKD

Dave C

[Nigel C]

Originally Posted by Shaal L

last flight out of syd tomorrow

And with that nearly 50 people will be out of work I believe. A very sad day for those involved.

[Kurt A]

Leaving Sydney for the last time, climbing through 5000ft.

[Trevor Sinclair]

Nice to see and meet a few people on the Rydge's Rooftop for her departure today too!

[Dave C]

Originally Posted by Nigel C

And with that nearly 50 people will be out of work I believe. A very sad day for those involved.

Just curious if this figure is for real.
50 people for 1 aircraft a day? Seriously?
Will they really be out of a job, or is it a contract company that will use these individuals elsewhere?

[Nigel C]

46 was the figure one of their now-redundant engineers told me. It's not just the engineering staff, it's also the admin staff, check-in staff, customer service etc. They were a daily flight, so there'd have to be a reasonable number of people to cover the duty shifts, annual leave coverage etc. And for the engineers, they didn't just look after Virgin Atlantic, they also had contracts with at least Aerolineas Argentinas (also now gone).

[Stuart Trevena]

Hi All,

Sad Day indeed - Pity they couldn't just transfer the flights down to YMML and ops via SIN, in light that there is no BA Service out of MEL.

Was that the last A340 service or are there others?

Stuart