Virgin Australia rules out reactivating B777s

Virgin Australia International (VA, Brisbane Int’l) has no plans to reactivate the last two B777-300(ER)s still owned by VB LeaseCo, a Virgin Australia Holdings special purpose vehicle, even when international flights from Australia resume, the Executive Traveller has reported.

The airline limited its statement to saying that it continued to work with aircraft manufacturers regarding its future long-haul fleet strategy, without going into details on the B777s. However, unnamed sources confirmed that Virgin Australia was in the process of selling the last two aircraft of the type under a procedure initiated during the carrier’s voluntary administration in 2020.

VH-VPD (msn 37938) and VH-VPH (msn 37943) are 12.1 and 10.7 years old, respectively. They were retired from scheduled passenger service in early April 2020 but continued to operate passenger and cargo-only charters through early October and early August 2020, respectively. Since then, they have remained in storage at Toowoomba Wellcamp airport, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Virgin Australia International was operating five B777-300(ER)s, the ch-aviation fleets history module shows. The aircraft were primarily deployed on the carrier’s transpacific network to the United States. The other three were sold or returned to lessors, although none of them has been successfully remarketed thus far. Only one of the five units, VH-VOZ (msn 35302), has a new operator already known – after maintenance at Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen, the aircraft will be delivered to Azur Air (ZF, Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo).

After its acquisition by Bain Capital, Virgin Australia said that while it would focus on its domestic and regional network, it would not abandon the long-haul market. Having retired all widebody aircraft at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has yet to announce any fleet plans for resuming services to the United States and Japan. In 2020, local media reported the airline was eyeing B787-9s.