VARA to replace ATR with F70 on Qld. run

[Greg Hyde]

Virgin Australia to use Alliance Fokker 70s for Emerald ops

17MAY2016

Virgin Australia (VA, Brisbane Int'l) will wet-lease a Fokker 70 from local ACMI/charter operator Alliance Airlines (QQ, Brisbane Int'l) to service its Brisbane Int'l–Emerald, Queensland route.

Australian Aviation News reports the agreement will come into being on May 30 when the Fokker Aircraft (Woensdrecht) replaces the current ATR72-500/600s deployed on the route.

Earlier this year, Virgin signed a strategic partnership with Alliance Airlines in which the two carriers pledged to cooperate in the fly-in/fly-out charter market for natural resource companies operating in Australia.

http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/ne...or-emerald-ops

[David Knudsen]

Excellent, I was wondering what I was going to do with my Velocity points before they start expiring, a Fokker 70 ride will do nicely.

[Yusef D]

Announcing that they have 3 too many ATRs then announcing an ATR route to be operated by a contractor confuses me.

[Rowan McKeever]

Most things VA do confuse me. This just joins the end of the list.

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[MarkR]

Originally Posted by Yusef D

Announcing that they have 3 too many ATRs then announcing an ATR route to be operated by a contractor confuses me.

Depends on how the aircraft fit into fleet utilisation, it's possible that route required a dedicated aircraft which due to timings couldn't be used elsewhere, using a wet lease could as a result be cheaper. Emerald is beyond the 400nm range that makes the ATR a gem cost wise.

[Rob R]

Lease costs of the ATR are more than 25+ year old F70.

[Greg Hyde]

it will come down to costs.

Alliance (probably) has an excess of a/c with the downturn in mining charters.

VARA can get rid of excess ATR.

Similar thing happening in WA with QF/Network replacing B738 with F100 to put B738 into more lucrative routes

[Max C]

Apparently the lease rates for the ATR's are very high compared to what is available on the market now and VA would no doubt like to be rid of the excess costs.

The leasing company has been advertising some of the VARA ATR's for the last few months.

http://www.avation.net/aircraft_available.html

They also list one of the VARA A320's (VH-YUD) as available as well.

VA will possibly consolidate the ATR operation to NSW/ACT/VIC over time. E190's are already replacing the ATR on several GLT/ROK flights lately.

The F70 can go anywhere the ATR can go in the QLD network, even Moranbah. They could be payload limited though but probably no more than the ATR was on a hot day.

It'll be interesting to see how this Alliance/virgin arrangement unfolds.

[MarkR]

Originally Posted by Max C;

The leasing company has been advertising some of the VARA ATR's for the last few months.

[url

http://www.avation.net/aircraft_available.html[/url]

They also list one of the VARA A320's (VH-YUD) as available as well.

The ATRs have not been under VARAs AOC for a while.

[Max C]

Still the same a/c leased from the same owner and on the market.