Old Planes - Boston Belle

I first went on Virgin in 1997 on a flight to Orlando. It seems well known that Virgin seem to use old planes for this route - so I wondered if anyone knew what happened to this plane? Has it been retired, renamed, scrapped or sold on?

I went on Boston Belle and came back on 'Wild Thing' which also appears to have vanished.

I am due back to Florida for the first time in 7 years next year and I was curious as to what fleet they are flying now. Had a good look around this excellent site and found the current fleet - which did not mention those planes, so thought I would pose the question.

Boston Belle (G-VJFK) went to Kabo Air

Wild Thing (G-VCAT) was last seen with Transaero

[:X]

Apparently the aircraft that went to Kabo Air is now stored at Jakarta, which would figure as I believe Kabo are Hajj specialists.

G-VCAT didn't go directly to Transaero from VS, IIRC she went to European Air Charter for a period of time as well as G-CCMA. The 742's that went to Transaero are currently being stored somewhere (possibly one of the Rome airports) as they are awaiting freighter conversion. Have not flown since late 2008.

quote:Originally posted by willd


G-VCAT didn't go directly to Transaero from VS, IIRC she went to European Air Charter for a period of time as well as G-CCMA.


If you click the Transaero link that I posted above, you can see the exact journey that G-VCAT took on the way to Transaero.

[:w]

[Scrooge]

Speaking of which, has GVAST been parked yet ?

No G-VAST still flying I saw her in MCO a few days ago.

quote:Originally posted by Tinkerbelle
quote:Originally posted by willd


G-VCAT didn't go directly to Transaero from VS, IIRC she went to European Air Charter for a period of time as well as G-CCMA.


If you click the Transaero link that I posted above, you can see the exact journey that G-VCAT took on the way to Transaero.

[:w]

Yeh I know I just misread your original post, I thought you had said it had gone directly to Transaero.


quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
Speaking of which, has GVAST been parked yet ?


AS VB747 states she is still flying. On Friday she flew up to MAN empty after arriving in from KIN. However that confuses me because firstly I thought the MAN rotation was done in MCO and secondly she left LGW bound for MAN at 5pm in the evening.

[Neil]

quote:Originally posted by willd
AS VB747 states she is still flying. On Friday she flew up to MAN empty after arriving in from KIN. However that confuses me because firstly I thought the MAN rotation was done in MCO and secondly she left LGW bound for MAN at 5pm in the evening.


The swapping in MCO might be slightly complicated on the weekends when the extra VS49/50 operates, so maybe it required some positioning in the UK and it was just getting ready to do the 75 on the Sat am?

And dont forget the extra MAN/MCO VS 73 that also operates at the weekend

quote:Originally posted by Neil
quote:Originally posted by willd
AS VB747 states she is still flying. On Friday she flew up to MAN empty after arriving in from KIN. However that confuses me because firstly I thought the MAN rotation was done in MCO and secondly she left LGW bound for MAN at 5pm in the evening.


The swapping in MCO might be slightly complicated on the weekends when the extra VS49/50 operates, so maybe it required some positioning in the UK and it was just getting ready to do the 75 on the Sat am?


Ahhh yes that must be it. However they had a 744 come down from MAN at about 4pm also. Seems amazing that they have the aircraft inactive between 9am on a Friday morning and lunchtime on Sat- one would have expected they could get the schedules worked so the a/c could fly on a Friday also.

[Neil]

quote:Originally posted by willd
Seems amazing that they have the aircraft inactive between 9am on a Friday morning and lunchtime on Sat- one would have expected they could get the schedules worked so the a/c could fly on a Friday also.


With the plans to park G-VAST in the not to distant future, the fleet obviously isn't over stretched at the moment, so it might mean the odd occasion when there are a/c inactive for the odd day here and there.

quote:Originally posted by Neil
quote:Originally posted by willd
Seems amazing that they have the aircraft inactive between 9am on a Friday morning and lunchtime on Sat- one would have expected they could get the schedules worked so the a/c could fly on a Friday also.


With the plans to park G-VAST in the not to distant future, the fleet obviously isn't over stretched at the moment, so it might mean the odd occasion when there are a/c inactive for the odd day here and there.

VS is still keeping their aircraft busy.
Over the last quarter they managed almost 57% utilisation for their 744s (with 88% of seats filled).
Only BAs new 777s (at 59% util. but only 79% full) and a single Thomas Cook aircraft achieved better.
In comparison, most BMI aircraft are under 40% util., the average BA aircraft is only 45% utilisation.

However VS is down almost 5% on aircraft utilisation compared with the same quarter last year but it is almost 10% UP on seats filled!

edit to add source

quote:Originally posted by Bill S
quote:Originally posted by Neil
quote:Originally posted by willd
Seems amazing that they have the aircraft inactive between 9am on a Friday morning and lunchtime on Sat- one would have expected they could get the schedules worked so the a/c could fly on a Friday also.


With the plans to park G-VAST in the not to distant future, the fleet obviously isn't over stretched at the moment, so it might mean the odd occasion when there are a/c inactive for the odd day here and there.

VS is still keeping their aircraft busy.
Over the last quarter they managed almost 57% utilisation for their 744s.
Only BAs new 777s (at 59%) and a single Thomas Cook aircraft achieved better.
In comparison, most BMI aircraft are under 40%, the average BA aircraft is only 45%.


Interesting stats - thanks!

Do you have similar figures for VS 346 & 343? And even a split between LGW and LHR 744?

quote:Originally posted by Mont25
Interesting stats - thanks!

Do you have similar figures for VS 346 & 343? And even a split between LGW and LHR 744?


Comparing 2nd quarter data, Utilisation & Capacity
VS343 2008 52% util. 76% cap. 2009 51% util. 76% cap.
VS346 2008 63% util. 75% cap. 2009 59% util. 78% cap.
VS744 2008 62% util. 78% cap. 2009 57% util. 88% cap.

Sorry - can't give you LGW/LHR fleet breakdown - but its general knowledge that LHR loads are lighter than LGW/MAN. MAN has the highest loads. Many LHR routes are shorter so utilisation can also be expected to be lower.

Source: CAA

The LGW/MAN fleet is getting some much needed extra downtime at the moment as the VS 27 is not operating again until 6th October and most of the BGI/UVF/ANU flights have become double drop patterns so that is freeing up two planes a day to have a little break and sort out any defects. The engineer in MCO told me that it is really benefitting all the planes and there are a lot less IFE problems etc, which was evident on G-VLIP yesterday as everything worked perfectly.

Last Friday (11th Sept)G-VAST flew out of Gatwick to Xiamen in China. According to (http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/fo ... 29016.aspx) it went for a D-check. Not sure I believe it would have a D-check before going to Mojave. Maybe to have the Virgin titles removed before storage.

quote:Originally posted by mgm-al
Last Friday (11th Sept)G-VAST flew out of Gatwick to Xiamen in China. According to (http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/fo ... 29016.aspx) it went for a D-check. Not sure I believe it would have a D-check before going to Mojave. Maybe to have the Virgin titles removed before storage.

Perhaps pigs will fly.

quote:Originally posted by mgm-al
Last Friday (11th Sept)G-VAST flew out of Gatwick to Xiamen in China. According to (http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/fo ... 29016.aspx) it went for a D-check. Not sure I believe it would have a D-check before going to Mojave. Maybe to have the Virgin titles removed before storage.


That is interesting because that is contradicted by the LGW/LHR movements website that says G-VAST flew as VS819P at 5.15pm on the 11th. It wouldn't surprise me if LGW/LHR movements was not entirely accurate, after all they have the VS70 as arriving from Boston when its from Kingston!

[Neil]

It is a shame that ringway reports has stopped detailing for MAN now, it makes it more difficult to keep an accurate tab on the MAN/LGW fleet.

quote:Originally posted by Neil
It is a shame that ringway reports has stopped detailing for MAN now, it makes it more difficult to keep an accurate tab on the MAN/LGW fleet.


Yeh and that its not like the good old days were there were a couple of 'insiders' at VS operations who could give us the heads up on these sort of issues.