Key Details

Flight No:VA567

Date: 19th May 2023

Route: Sydney to Perth 

Aircraft: Boeing 737-800

Cabin: Economy

The Route

The route between Sydney and Perth is one of Australia’s most important and frequented. It connects Australia’s largest city of Sydney with its West Coast capital of Perth with a journey of around 3,300km as the crow flies with a flight time of around 5 hours. It is currently the second busiest route out of Perth Airport with around 1.7 million passengers prior to the pandemic. Typically there are up to 15 daily return flights on the route with strong competition with Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia all operating on the route.

Qantas are the biggest operator on the route operating around 7 daily departures including some of which which are operated with larger Airbus A330-200 aircraft instead of their usual Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Virgin Australia operate the reminder with Boeing 737-800 aircraft whilst Jetstar operate several flights a day with Airbus A320 aircraft. Competition on the route is therefore pretty strong although prices have generally increased steeply post-covid. Expect fares to typically retail around $300 with Virgin or $400 with Qantas although much cheaper flights can occasionally be scoped up with Jetstar.

(Re-) Checking in at Sydney

As today’s flight eventuated in Queenstown today’s check in procedure would be a little different involving an international -self transfer to to the domestic terminal at Sydney Airport. This meant whilst my itinerary was ticketed all the way to Perth from Queenstown I did however have to pick up my bag in Sydney, clear customs and immigration and then re-check my bag in through to Perth.Unfortuntely despite being advised in Queenstown that the international transfer desk would be open in Sydney whereby I could re-check in my bag after clearing customs from the international terminal unfortutnely the counter was left unattended and directed us striaght to the domestic terminal. This meant I had to take the T-Bus as planned, a some 10 minute journey through to the domestic terminal but with the added inconvenience of having to lug my luggage over there. Not a massive deal but bit dissapoininting cosidering this was not as advised the transfer process would be like in Sydney.

Once arriving at the domestic terminal check in staff seemed to be a little confused as to why I hadn’t dropped my bags off at the international terminal with them not appearing to be aware that the transfer desk was closed and indeed directing passengers to them. I believe the bag had already been checked through to Perth from Queenstown so I think they thought it had already been checked in. Anyway after a few minutes of confusion I was finally on way again with Sydney domestic airport being very busy at this time of day although I was still through security in around 10 minutes.

Despite having around 2.5 hours transit time in Sydney overall the transfer process between international and domestic flights in Sydney is a pretty time consuming process especially for Virgin who don’t have a dedicated airside transit shuttle unlike Qantas. Once I had made it though domestic security I had less than a hour before my next flight but luckily just enough time to get dinner at a participating priority pass restaurant and a quick refreshment or two at the REX Lounge which you can read a review from a previous visit here!

Economy Class Seating

Today’s flight was on a typical Boeing 737-800, the same workhorse behind most of Virgin’s jet services between Australia’s capital cities.Virgin’s Boeing 737-800 has a 3-3 economy layout with a small 2 row 2-2 Business Cabin at the pointy end of the plane which is one less row or 4 seats less than Qantas’s offering on the Boeing 737.Virgin Australia’s Boeing 737-800 aircraft accommodate a total of 176 seats with standard economy sets offering a seat pitch of 30inch and a width of 17inches. Economy X seats are located in rows 3-5, 13 and 14 with Virgin Australia claiming Economy X seats come with up to 40% extra legroom which I was lucky enough to had received a free upgrade to on the flight over to Sydney from Queenstown. Whilst I’m not sure my particular exit row seat has that much extra legroom it was still a noticeable upgrade in space and allowed for plenty of room to stretch my legs and get out of the row without my seat neighbour having to get up.

Tonight’s flight is much busier though and I’m seating in a regular economy class window seat, its a relatively full flight and you definitely notice how tight the leg-room is going be for a flight of around 5 hours. This is definitely a flight that tall passengers might wish to strongly consider paying extra for Economy X seating in advance!

Inflight service and food and beverage

Unfortunately post-pandemic complimentary food and drinks has largely been scrapped for all Virgin Australia economy and economy x class passengers. Free tea, coffee and water however still is on offer so not all is lost. Anything else for non business class passengers can be purchased from the airline’s buy on board menu which offers a range of soft drinks, alcoholic beverages and snacks with prices typical to other Australian airlines with buy on board menu. Despite a rather rushed transit between my internationally arriving flight from Queenstown over to the domestic side of the precinct I still manage to utilise a $36 credit for dinner at a participating Priority Pass resturant and drop by the REX Lounge to get a few snacks so I didn’t feel the need to buy anything on card for this flight.

Entertainment

Unfortunately, Virgin do not have seatback IFE or free publicly accessible wifi on their flights for economy class passengers. They do however offer streaming to your own device where you can watch a reasonable but not overly extensive range of tv shows and movies and al so view the inflight map. Unlike my inbound connecting flight from Queenstown I did very much utilise the streaming to your own device entertainment watching the four part Richard Branson documentary series covering the larger than life personality of the Virgin’s group founder. I found it an excellent series which streamed flawlessly to my iPad and provided the perfect amount of viewing for a 5 hour flight.

Arriving into Perth

Just after 4 hours in the air we began our descent into Perth winding back the clock 3 hours and finally arriving at 9.20pm local time or around 10 minutes ahead of schedule. It’s a pretty smooth landing into Perth tonight’s which always never fails to impress with its night time landing views. Virgin Australia operate out of their own dedicated domestic wing of Terminal 1 in Perth which otherwise is the main international terminal at Perth Airport. It’s a fairly busy time here at Perth Airport with numerous arrivals from the Eastern Seaboard combined with plenty of late-night international traffic although. Once I arrived at their baggage belt, luggage came out shortly later with only around a 5 minute wait time which was pretty efficient in my opinion.

Summing Up:

Overall today’s flight with Virgin was a pleasant and largely uneventful flight which was booked at a bargain 21,000 velocity points as part of a reward seat redemption from Queenstown all the way to Perth which was an excellent redemption considering the Sydney to Perth component of it alone would cost 18,000 if booked separately! Unfortunately the Virgin Australia Economy Class experience post covid under its new owners is very much the scaled back experience to what trans-continental flights were like with the airline pre-covid with the airline offering more comfortable wide-body aircraft and even complimentary meals and drinks.

Whilst I was very much expecting the scaled down experience it would not appear that the cash prices for Virgin Australia flights has in any way noticeably decreased if they haven’t actually increased. In other words I think you are getting less for more with the Virgin Australia experience in 2023 and the airline needs to do more to diffierante itself between budget carrier Jetstar, the innovative arrival of REX and Bonza to the scene and full service carrier Qantas to remain truly competitive in the Australian market.

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