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The Virgin Blue airline group will pull its full service airline V Australia out of Fiji, replacing it with smaller Pacific Blue aircraft as part of efforts to boost capacity on other key routes, the group has announced.
Virgin Blue is also pulling out of the domestic New Zealand sector.
The changes are part of the first stage of a route review, The Australian newspaper reports.
The airline group announced this morning that it would redeploy Pacific Blue planes on domestic New Zealand routes to boost its trans-Tasman services.
Pacific Blue will also take over the Boeing 777 widebody flights to Fiji allowing the international carrier to concentrate on boosting capacity on key US, South Africa and South-East Asia services.
The changes will also see Pacific Blue boost Brisbane-Hamilton, Denpasar-Melbourne, Perth-Phuket, Brisbane-Dunedin and Christchurch-Melbourne frequencies.
V Australia will change its Sydney-Los Angeles services to a morning departure and move to daily services from December 10. Services from Melbourne to LA, Johannesburg and Phuket will also increase from December.
The changes will not come as a surprise to industry observers.
Air New Zealand boss Rob Fyfe has been predicting for some time that one of the players in the domestic New Zealand market was likely to drop out and Virgin was the likely candidate.
Virgin chief executive John Borghetti said today it was a case of matching the right aircraft to the right routes.
"We are adding capacity to routes with strong revenue potential and accordingly, removing capacity from services which are underperforming," Borghetti said.
The airline's announcement said Virgin Blue would continue to focus on strengthening its domestic operations, building on recently increased frequency and capacity on key routes and a bilateral agreement with Skywest in Western Australia.
Source: The Australian
