A330 NEO - now confirmed 17/06/2019

Mitchja I thought they had the 2 Class config until at least Winter 13 which is when MCO went exclusively over to 747s?

They chose Roll Royce engines for the a330neos so maybe the reason why they didn’t chose the 787 was something different to the engine issues!?
Still confused as to what the 747 replacement is going to be- to me it currently looks like they will either be using a330s with additional frequencies on current 747 routes or just current frequencies but smaller plane, which could mean loosing a large market share on the Orlando route.

RR Trent 7000 engines are the only power plants available for the A330neo, so I'm guessing VS wouldn't have gone for them if RR engines would have been a deal-breaker. It could have been that Airbus were offering more competitive pricing or a more competitive package or could deliver them more quickly than Boeing could deliver 787's or a combination of all. Another advantage is that crew already type-rated for A330's should require little training to work neo's (or at least that appears to be the case for other airlines who have A320ceo's and neo's) whereas re-training them on 787's would have been costly and time-consuming.

VS are getting a decent plane that will suitably replace the existing A330's and can be put to use on most routes across their network if needed.

As I’ve alluded to in the past and as Jakedonson says above - I still feel like VS have a problem with the loss of the 747s and this doesn’t really address it.

I thought the A350's were intended for 747 replacement?

The first VS A333 (G-VSXY) also went into service in April 2nd 2011 on the MAN>MCO route.

At the time, weren't the A333's a stop-gap order for the delayed 789's as well?

I flew on G-VSKY on the MAN>MCO route back in Dec 2012 and she was still in the 2 cabin config at that time.

787 stopgap was my recollection too as the 787 EIS for a lot of airlines was over 3 years late. I don't believe VS were the only ones to go to Airbus for interim lift and a lot of A330's were sold in that period. I could be wrong, but I also recall the A330-300 order being the remainder of the A340 order after Airbus pulled the plug on the A340 line?

If I remember rightly, there were 3 -300's in 2-class config (G-VKSS, G-VSXY and G-VINE) with the remainder eventually joining the fleet in the normal 3-class config. Some of them are now on their third config given that the UCDS seats were recently swapped out for UCS seats.

As David says, 3 of them were hired out (VINE being one of them) for a while straight from the production line before entering the VS fleet. There's a potted history of them here: https://www.jethros.org.uk/fleets/fleet ... lantic.htm

No mention of GLA in the statement which is a bit worrying. Its only an MCO flight but very handy for me personally and loads seem solid.

Given the 747s are going I wonder what will happen to this route; either a capacity loss if its replaced by any other aircraft or maybe Virgins plan is to scrap it entirely and MAN will be the gateway for Scotland as well as the North of England?

I don’t think there’s any plan to cut BFS or GLA they are both very popular and have expanded year after year . BFS used was a trail for 3 weeks and now operates the whole season as I understand it.

[mitchja]

Also VS have op’ed the BFS>MCO flights using an A332 or A333 a couple of times so far as well this year.

The GLA>MCO flight has always been op’ed using a 744 though.

Also VS have op’ed the BFS>MCO flights using an A332 or A333 a couple of times so far as well this year.

The GLA>MCO flight has always been op’ed using a 744 though.

Virgin will operate the Gla -Mco on the A332 from November

I think that Virign will soon order either 787-10 or 777x with a light upper class cabin with more premium economy to allow the leisure market growth


Will be interesting to see what happens over the coming weeks

I personally think the 777X is too big and has a lot of capabilities VS don't need such as range. Other than space, there's not much the 777X is offering that VS isn't going to get with the A350-1000's. One option when they were deciding on 747 replacement could have been end-of-the-line 777-300ER's, but we know how that went and I suspect that boat has now sailed.

The 787-10 remains to be seen. There was a lot of speculation elsewhere that VS would simply order those as 747 replacements, but I felt at the time they weren't big enough and part of me thinks they would have ordered some by now if they simply had to have some. This order would have been a good opportunity to order some along with a few more -9's.

The most likely outcome IMO is an increase in PE seating will be at the expense of Economy seats, though maybe nowhere near as much as some of the sacrifices made by BA on their Super Hi-J config 747's.

I could see a top up A35K order if they think they need more aircraft of that size.

It may be that, for example the Florida demand, can be spread between MCO and MIA moving forwards.

I do think there is a good business case for offering more UC seats on the MCO route. I've been a fairly regular customer on MAN-MCO since 2006 - always in UC. I have yet to fly a flight with more than one empty Upper Class seat - and even then only very rarely.

Even on very light flights, e.g. 150 onboard when the 747 can seat 456, Upper Class has invariably been full. The lucky people back in Y were all getting lie-flat beds of a different kind when they commandeered a middle row of 4 seats once the seatbelt sign went off.

I do think there is a good business case for offering more UC seats on the MCO route. I've been a fairly regular customer on MAN-MCO since 2006 - always in UC. I have yet to fly a flight with more than one empty Upper Class seat - and even then only very rarely.

Even on very light flights, e.g. 150 onboard when the 747 can seat 456, Upper Class has invariably been full. The lucky people back in Y were all getting lie-flat beds of a different kind when they commandeered a middle row of 4 seats once the seatbelt sign went off.

+1

Echo your comments to the letter. Apart from once when I was the only one in Upper nearly all others have been full or nearly full

David

The fares bare this out too for Upper to MCO!