V Australia to start trans-Pacific flights
April 1st, 2008 by Tim Uden
V Australia, the latest offshot of Australian low cost carrier Virgin Blue, started selling tickets for its first route (Sydney-Los Angeles) yesterday. The first flights on the new airline will be in December 2008.
V Australia was set up by Virgin Blue to serve the Australia to USA market, which has long suffered from high prices due to very little competition. It was hoped that the introduction of a budget focused airline to this route would shake things up a bit and introduce a much needed price war. With just a handful of airlines flying between Australia and the United States, the relatively short 14 hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles often costs more than the much longer 24 hour Sydney-London flight. Unfortunately the introduction of V Australia does little to lower the price.
The first 1000 return tickets are selling for AUD $999. I did a test booking to work out what the regular fare on their Sydney-LA route will cost and came up with a return fare of AUD $1898.
I understand that there is little competition on the Sydney-LA route, even with the launch of V Australia, and that the new airline wants to be profitable as quickly as possible. But I expected much cheaper fares.
To put things into comparision, Sydney-LA is only a 14 hour flight in each direction and you can fly Sydney-London (not on an a LCC, but on a full service airline) for around the same price, which is a much longer 24 hour flight. In other words a return Sydney-LA flight on V Australia costs around the same as a return Sydney-London flight but you get around 20 hours less in the air.
Twenty fewer hours in your airline seat should account for much lower fares. The standard return fare between Australia and the California should be around AUD $1000, but instead V Australia want to charge you almost double.
We need a real low cost carrier on this route. Air Asia, Tiger, Jetstar, Ryanair, anyone?
One Response to “V Australia to start trans-Pacific flights”
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April 1st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
[...] http://www.bug.co.uk/blog/2008/04/01/v-australia-to-start-trans-pacific-flights/It was hoped that the introduction of a budget focused airline to this route would shake things up a bit and introduce a much needed price war. With just a handful of airlines flying between Australia and the United States, … [...]