Virgin Australia to cease flights between Melbourne and Los Angeles.
Virgin Australia has just announced changes to its US flight schedule, with services from Brisbane to Los Angeles increasing from the current four times per week to a daily operation.
The move will see VA suspend its Melbourne-Los Angeles route, with the final flight operating ex MEL on 25 October 2014.
From 26 October VA’s Sydney-Los Angeles service will also have a slightly revised departure time to allow an earlier arrival into Los Angeles.
VA said overall there will be no reduction in its capacity between Australia and the USA following these changes.
“We work closely with our alliance partner Delta Air Lines to review our trans-Pacific services and ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers and our commercial objectives,” said VA chief commercial officer, Judith Crompton.
After the change the VA/DL joint venture will offer double daily flights between Sydney and Los Angeles, and a daily service between Brisbane and Los Angeles.
The additional Brisbane services will be operated by VA’s three-class Boeing 777 aircraft.
“The changes announced today are a result of extensive market analysis,” Crompton said.
“Having the right frequency is very important to corporate and leisure customers and moving to daily flights from Brisbane enables us to provide more choice and flexibility to those travelling to and from Queensland.”
Virgin Australia’s withdrawal from Melbourne comes two days ahead of the debut of United Airlines’ new six times weekly direct 787 Dreamliner flights from Los Angeles to the Victorian capital.
More information in today’s Travel Daily.