News
Tigerair Australia to become all-Boeing operator
July 8th 2016
Virgin Australia this week said its Tigerair Australia budget subsidiary will transform into an all-Boeing operator within three years as part of Virgin Australia Group’s fleet simplification programme aimed at making “the business model more scalable and productive”. Read More »
Tigerair Australia currently deploys 14 A320s on domestic services and three B737-800s on services from Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide to Denpasar.
The decision to replace Tigerair’s A320s with Boeing’s 737 comes after Virgin Australia last month announced it would sell all 18 E190s and up to six of its 14 ATR regional jets.
Virgin Australia has five outstanding B737-800s, as well as 40 on-order B737 MAXs due from 2018.
In terms of financial performance, the Brisbane-headquartered carrier reaffirmed the previously issued guidance in May of an underlying profit before tax of between A$30 million ($22.5 million) and A$60 million for the year to June 30. This compares to an underlying before-tax loss of $49 million the previous year.
In other Down Under updates, China’s Xiamen Airlines last Friday performed its inaugural Xiamen-Melbourne B787-8 service. The SkyTeam carrier will serve the route twice a week. It operates the aircraft in a low density configuration, including four seats in first, 18 in business and 215 in economy class. Xiamen Airlines also serves Sydney from both Xiamen and Fuzhou with the Dreamliner.
As reported last week, HNA Group carrier, Beijing Capital Airlines, plans to launch a thrice-weekly Shenyang-Qingdao-Melbourne A330-200 route commencing in September.
