Trip Report: VC & JQ BNE-MEL-BNE (photos)

[Brandon Giacomin]

Hi All,

Last Saturday I went down to Melbourne for the day to do some spotting and to try out to new airlines I have never flown on before, Air Australia and Jetstar.

Introduction
When Air Australia announced they would commence flights between Brisbane and Melbourne-Tullamarine I decided I would give them a go. I started looking at dates in January and decided I would do the trip on Saturday January 21. Air Australia only fly BNE-MEL once a day on weekends and the Saturday flight is a morning departure so I would fly with them to MEL. So I just had to choose my flight back, Tiger was the cheapest but I decided to go with Jetstar, as I had never flown with them before and it was only like $10 more.

So my flights were booked, I would be flying on Air Australia flight VC562 to Melbourne departing Brisbane at 0710 and arriving at 1040. And I would be on Jetstar flight JQ566 to Brisbane departing Melbourne at 1800 and arriving at 1915. I couldn’t wait to try out both airlines!

Brisbane Airport
4:30am wakeup call and left the house a bit after 5am. Got to the airport at about 5:30am, traffic was very light. Went to the Air Australia check in desks as they don’t have web check in yet. Only took a minute to check in and then I was going through security and up to the boarding gates.

First aircraft that caught my eye was Jetstar A320 VH-VGA, first time I’ve seen an A320 in the revised livery. Then Qantas B744ER VH-OEE arrived from Dallas, and then I saw my ride to Melbourne waiting at the gate, it was VH-YQC which is in the wonderful Air Australia livery.

VH-VGA


My ride to Melbourne


With still another hour and a half till my flight was scheduled to depart I decided to have a walk around the terminal. First I went to the Virgin end where I found VH-VUF, VH-YID, VH-ZPR and VH-FVL looking great in the Virgin Australia livery, also saw VH-VUJ, VH-VBO, VH-ZPD and a few other Virgin aircraft.

VH-FVL


Then over to the Qantas end where I found VH-OGO and parked next to her, the only Aboriginal painted aircraft in the fleet VH-VXB ‘Yananyi Dreaming’. Were also about 5 Dash 8’s and 5 B737’s.

Yananyi, unfortunately I couldn’t get an unobstructed view of her.


After having a look around the terminal I just sat down at my gate waiting for the flight to board. Looked like a light load but after 6:30am more people started to show up and when boarding started it looked like it would be a full flight!

January 21, 2012
Air Australia
VC562
BNE-MEL
VH-YQC A320
Seat 08A

Because Air Australia use the common user satellite at Brisbane Airport all passengers need to walk on the tarmac Managed to get some good shots while walking out.

Walking out to YQC


Up the stairs, just love there livery!


Taxiing out to RWY19


Taxiing past ‘The Loop’, with a few spotters out photographing us taxiing past


Took off on RWY19 and climbed up to 36 000ft. Didn’t take any photos of the departure or on the way to MEL as I was facing the sun. Bought a chicken wrap which was very nice and entertained myself on the flight with my iPod. Was a pretty short flight, only 2 hours. Started taking photos again as we went under the clouds.

Finals for RWY16


Nearly down


Slowing down with a Philippine Airlines B773 about to take off on RWY27


Qantas A380 taxiing to the international