Virgin Australia will fly five times weekly direct flights between Melbourne, Australia and Los Angeles, U.S. from 4 April 2017 subject to regulatory approvals. This is part of the joint venture between Delta Airlines and Virgin Australia. The flight will be operated on a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, complementing existing flights offered by Delta and Virgin Australia. Both airlines offer a total of 25 weekly flights between Australia and United States and round trip connectivity from 230 destinations in the Americas to 49 destinations across Australia and New Zealand.
VA23/DL6793 will depart Melbourne at 11.30am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and arrive in Los Angeles at 9am. The return flight VA24/DL6792 departs Los Angeles at 9.10pm on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and arrives in Melbourne at 6pm two days later.
Today, Qantas and United Airlines offer direct night flights between Los Angeles and Melbourne. Virgin Australia currently flies from Melbourne via Sydney to Los Angeles. It will cease its thrice weekly Sydney – Abu Dhabi flights after 4 February 2017 and reduce the Brisbane – Los Angeles flights from seven per week to six per week from 7 April 2017 to enable to introduction of services between Melbourne and Los Angeles.
Delta and Virgin Australia currently fly twice-daily flights from Los Angeles to Sydney and daily from Los Angeles to Brisbane.
Virgin Australia also announced that it will introduce thrice weekly services between Perth and Abu Dhabi using its Airbus A330-200 aircraft from 9 June 2017. Deploying the A330-200 aircraft on this flight route will increase the number of services offered on this route from seven to 10 per week through its alliance with Etihad Airways. Virgin Australia customers will continue to have the option of twice daily flights between Sydney and Abu Dhabi with its alliance partner Etihad Airways to add three new weekly services on the route in February 2017.
Virgin Australia’s Business Class features individual and private suites in a 1-2-1 configuration so that customers get direct aisle access. The seats convert into the length of a queen size bed, and customers enjoy a turndown service with memory foam mattress toppers and high grade cotton pillows and doonas. The Luke Mangan-designed menus are paired with premium wines. Virgin Airline boasts the largest in-flight entertainment screen at 18 inch high definition touch screen, flying between Australia and North America on the B777-300ER aircraft and a large 16-inch High Definition touch screen on the A330 aircraft.
