Aussie Flyer

FLIGHT Virgin Australia VA7 AIRCRAFT Boeing 777-300ER VH-VOZ (7 years old) ROUTE Brisbane to Los Angeles CLASS Business Class seat 4A DEPARTURE 10.50AM ARRIVAL 6.55AM DURATION 13 hours 05 minutes So, this review is already out of date because the seats have been replaced but here is a quick look at a flight I took in April this year with Virgin Australia from Brisbane to Los Angeles.  Virgin Australia operate a small fleet of 5 B777-300ER's, serving Los Angeles from both Brisbane and Sydney, along with the Sydney to Abu Dhabi route. This is flight VA7, the daily flight from Brisbane to Los Angeles. Virgin compete with Qantas on this route who fly a daily B747-400. Brisbane International Checkin

Virgin have had short haul business class on domestic for a few years now. I have read mixed reviews on the product with some experiencing great service and others being almost ignored. Here is my experience on a recent trip. FLIGHT: Virgin Australia VA309 ROUTE: Melbourne to Brisbane AIRCRAFT: Boeing 737-800 VH-VUJ (almost 10 years old) DEPARTURE: 7.00AM ARRIVAL: 8.10AM DURATION: 2 hrs 10 min My flight this morning was operated by VH-VUJ. This aircraft is almost 10 years old, delivered to Virgin Blue in 2006 and later repainted to the current Virgin Australia livery. The aircraft, like all the other VA 737-800's, has 8 business seats and 168 economy. I was in seat 1A for this sector. Upon arrival at the terminal I headed to the Virgin Australia lounge and snapped a pic of my aircraft which was parked right nearby:

With the suites upgrade on Qantas A330s almost complete, flights across the country are going to finally have a consistent business class product. Here we have my experience about 6 months ago on a dinnertime flight, Perth to Melbourne. Terminal Entry

Just before Christmas I flew over to WA to fly on the Fokker 50 before they were retired from Virgin Australia's fleet. I happened to find myself in Geraldton, an interesting town with some interesting characters. Having flown 3 sectors on the F50 it was time to go back to Melbourne and I redeemed some Qantas points to do it. The routing was Geraldton-Perth-Melbourne and the first leg was on the Fokker 100. This would be a first flight for me on this aircraft type which has become the standard type in use in the WA mining market. It's an aircraft that is long out of production and most airlines have retired it (or are in the process of doing so) but it's somehow found a niche here in Australia and in particular, Western Australia. Flight : QF1619 (Qantaslink operated by Network Aviation) Route : Geraldton to Perth Aircraft : Fokker 100 VH-NHJ Departure : 08.40 AM Arrival : 09.45 AM Flight Duration : 1 hour 05 minutes Qantaslink recently stopped flying the...

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This post follows on from Part 1 . This second report was for my return to Perth from Albany, on the Virgin Australia (Skywest) Fokker 50. FLIGHT 2: VA2526 ~ PERTH to ALBANY ~ 1525/1640  ~ Fokker 50 VH-FNH  ~ SEAT 9G I arrived at the airport a bit over an hour before departure and checked in for my flight to Perth, I was continuing on to Geraldton so I got the boarding pass for both sectors. Then it was through security where I was amazed to see that it took 3 security staff to process this small flight. It must be a costly process, and is something REX manages to avoid with it's smaller Saab 340 aircraft since they took over the route earlier this year. Albany Airport Terminal

I recently got to go to St Maarten and I absolutely loved it! It's a plane spotters paradise. I recommend everyone visit at least once if you are an aviation geek at all. Even if you are not you will truly enjoy sitting by the beach sipping on some Carib beers and watching the planes come in. Here is a bunch of my favourite photos that I took while at St Maarten recently. These are unedited raw pictures from my Nikon D3200. I am not a good photographer but I think they look pretty awesome. United Boeing 737-700