Why new aircraft now?

now i know that the new aircraft are good but istbc that there are know new expansions this year. so why have we got new aircraft arriving when the current aircraft seem to be able operate all of the routes fine. if there was a new aircraft in the fleet wouldnt this mean that at least one aircraft would be on the ground for longer that it should be?

Could be that Virgin are planning to get rid of some of the older aircraft in the fleet??
Eventually i recon Virgin will become a all airbus fleet, but yet if i were to guess what aircraft to leave 1st it be the A340-300 [yet the ones that are staying have had suit refits].
It Could be that they are replacing the old A340-300 [i.e G-VSUN] with the A340-600's??

[Neil]

Also remember VS are introducing new routes and extra services on exisiting routes all the time, as Graeme has said old aircraft will be retired from the fleet etc too.

Neil:)

Additional HKG flight coming later in the year - up against Air New Zealand on that route by then too, plus an extra JFK rotation, new flight to MRU, splitting the Tobago and Grenada flights onto seperate aircraft, and increasing some other services to daily frequency.

The tin has to come from somewhere, and maybe things are a little too tight for comfort with respect to aircraft scheduling at the moment?

There's going to be some point in the fleet size where you can always count on at least one or two aircraft in a sub-fleet being down for maintenance or checks as well.

Cheers,
Mike

oh right ok i didnt know that they were expanding and adding frequency on routes[:I]
that explains it then

Lots of great new routes will be coming up... you guys have guessed the last couple... wonder if you'll get the next few??? LOL

im guessing that new zealand would be a popular choice for VS.

[mcmbenjamin]

Charters, aircraft going to other Virgin airlines, new routes, more service on current routes, ordered a bunch a while back and getting how