Does VB fly Sydney and Melbourne to Kalgoorlie?

[Jarden S]

I was looking at the July inflight magazine for Virgin Blue. On the route map page there is a direct red line from Sydney and another one from Melbourne to Kalgoorlie. The red lines are direct Virgin blue flights and the dotted line is connecting flight going by the map key. There is a black line from Perth to Kalgoorlie thats the Skywest flight. Do Virgin fly to Kalgoorlie in their own metal or is that a error on their routemap. I notice that they also show a skywest flight from Melbourne to Kununurra a black line but I don't know if this exists also. Maybe these are new routes planned by both companies but not yet announced to the media.

Has to be an error at the moment, unless they are about to announce new services there? DJ seems to be launching new flights all over the place now so who knows!

Although I did remember Skywest operating a F100 Melbourne-Kalgoorlie, which failed miserably.

[Ellis Taylor]

I think those must be as codeshare connections via Perth, as there are definately none of those services currently available direct. SKW's MEL-KGI services did flop, and they needed the aircraft to do FIFO contracts. I doubt that in this climate there would be sufficient traffic to justify direct services to KGI from the East, but that's not to say it won't happen.

[Chris Fox]

It would not surprise me to see Virgin Blue start operations to Kalgoorlie within the next 12 months. Though this is one of the few routes to see a recent declining trend in pax numbers, this will surely be part of their expansion in the west at some stage.

[Bob C]

VB had plans for PER-KGI some years ago but it didn't get off the ground (so to speak !) because of a major conflict with the local council.

So I wonder if they have kissed and made up and are welcome now ?

[Glenn W]

The Kalgoorlie Airport is due to expand in coming weeks. This will combine all check in facilities instead of seperate Qantas and Skywest facilities. I think the issue with VB in 2005 was that it had to share facilities with Skywest. They didn`t like this. Now they Code share?? GO figure. But I tried booking flights from Kalgoorlie to Sydney yesterday for giggles and It wouldn`t let me even via codeshare so I may say in reality VB may run a PER KGI SYD or/and PER KGI MEL.