Virgin shorthaul to be operated initially by Avion Express

Basically what it says in the title. The shorthaul is going to be operated by Avion Express. External recruitment is beginning. If this is successful the current plan is to integrate it to an in-house operation which will be good news (Info obtained from Virgin pilots and a manager)

http://flyavex.com/

This certainly looks good and also promising for Virgin, as long as once the initial part is delivered, and succeeds, the testing part will be the sustaining / developing those routes / networks but I'm sure they could do it.

Looks like the speculation was correct.

Will be strange to have a ticket for a VS flight (not a code share) and get on a plane in a different companies livery. Will the staff be in VS uniform or Avion Express?

I've been told the aircraft will have red tails haha, whether that means full livery or not I'm not sure. AFAIK the staff will be in Virgin uniform.

Aircraft will be in full virgin livery and crew in virgin uniform trained by virgin so as far as the regular punter is concerned they won't know the aircraft and crew are leased just like BAs ex franchises like city flyer / gb airways and British Mediterranean

Anybody know much about this airline. I see they are Lithuanian. The airline that had the runway incursion at BHX operating on behalf of Monarch was also Lithuanian atnd at that time there was a lot of bad press re Eastern European operators

Now here's something interesting, according to EF there are J and Y fares available - there's no seat map there yet so whether this is real or not is to be confirmed. It could of course be like BA with the middle of three non-bookable, or other!

The are business fares but standard economy seats.

OR maybe Aer Lingus will operate them?

Aer Lingus announces short haul flights on behalf of another airline

This would be win - win for EI - maintaining their feeder flights with BA at LHR... and VS!

OR maybe Aer Lingus will operate them?

Aer Lingus announces short haul flights on behalf of another airline

This would be win - win for EI - maintaining their feeder flights with BA at LHR... and VS!

Perhaps Avion for MAN and EI for EDI and ABZ?

Slinky, what website did you use to produce that search?

It's Expert Flyer.

[honey lamb]

OR maybe Aer Lingus will operate them?

Aer Lingus announces short haul flights on behalf of another airline

This would be win - win for EI - maintaining their feeder flights with BA at LHR... and VS!

Perhaps Avion for MAN and EI for EDI and ABZ?

Must ask Aer John

So now we know that EDI and ABZ will be wet leases from Aer Lingus, but what's this on the VS booking page, premium economy to Manchester? Guess we'll have to wait for the announcements about on board product:

[honey lamb]

So now we know that EDI and ABZ will be wet leases from Aer Lingus, but what's this on the VS booking page, premium economy to Manchester? Guess we'll have to wait for the announcements about on board product:

Screen Shot 2012-12-10 at 13.15.16.png

EI planes which will be wet-leased only have one cabin configuration

Looks like the Avion Express rumour was incorrect then! I wonder what they are doing at Heathrow then?

It will be interesting to see how this VS/EI venture goes!

Yep I would say the Avion Express rumour was incorrect.

EI to operate all the flights on behalf of VS. WIth the crew base at LGW being shut and transfered to LHR. Mix of 319 and 320.

There is some question as to whether EI have enough aircraft to operate this wet lease but with two further 319's due for delivery early part of next year.

I think this also pretty much confirms that it will be a case of slapping paint on the outside and no VX style cabin improvements, pretty much as predicted. I would imagine Slink's find on EF could be a slight error, or at least loaded before VS knew exactly who would do the wet lease.

One thing that I've been wondering is how VS will hide the EI name embossed on the seats?

One thing that I've been wondering is how VS will hide the EI name embossed on the seats?

Presumably for a 3 year wetlease they will be able to afford to recover the seats.