Virgin Australia Group has extended domestic capacity reductions from 50% to 90%, including the suspension of Tigerair Australia domestic services effective immediately.
With state border closures escalating across Australia, the group said it needed to take further action that will see the suspension of most of its domestic flying from midnight March 27 until June 14. Thie reductions are in in addition to the group’s decision to temporarily suspend international flying from March 30 to June 14 and close all Virgin Australia operated lounges across the network.
“There has never been a travel environment in Australia as restricted as the one we see today and the extraordinary steps we’ve taken have been in response to the federal and state governments’ latest travel advice,” Virgin Australia CEO and managing director Paul Scurrah said.
“We are now facing what will be the biggest grounding of aircraft in this country’s history. From the end of this week, we will begin repositioning and grounding more than 125 aircraft in our fleet, suspending almost all our domestic and international flying until at least the middle of June.”
The group’s 90% reduction in domestic capacity means it will temporarily suspend services to 19 Australian destinations currently operated by Virgin Australia.
The company will continue to maintain connectivity to 17 Australian destinations in order to “transport essential services, critical freight and logistics.”
Virgin Australia plans to continue flights from Brisbane (BNE) to Cairns (CNS), Mackay (MKY), Melbourne (MEL), Perth (PER), Rockhampton (ROK), Sydney (SYD) and Townsville (TSV).
From MEL it will fly to Adelaide (ADL), BNE, Canberra (CBR), PER and SYD, while from SYD flights will operate to BNE, Gold Coast (OOL) and MEL. Finally, the carrier will fly from PER to BNE, Broome (BME) and MEL.
Photo credit: Virgin Australia
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