iscover
Virgin Australia has commenced its cargo operations with dedicated freighter aircraft ferrying parcels, food, documents and machinery for its major customer TNT and other clients.
The airline’s cargo business was launched in July 2015, when its eight-year contract with Toll ended and was not renewed. As a result, the selling and managing of the belly space in its passenger fleet of domestic and short-haul international aircraft was brought back in-house.
Its cargo unit was boosted with a five-year deal with TNT signed earlier in 2016 that has led to a fleet of dedicated freighter aircraft flown on behalf of Virgin by other operators and the opening of a cargo shed at Sydney Airport.
The first flights with those dedicated cargo aircraft kicked off on Monday, July 4, with VH-PDW, a Convair CV-580, operating up and down Australia’s east coast and to Adelaide on behalf of Virgin by Pionair Australia.
At the same time, a Boeing 737-300F from Airwork also started flying between Melbourne and Perth. Some overnight freighter services have also been flown by Virgin’s Airbus A330-200 fleet in the past week.
A BAe 146-200QC, VH-SIF, flown by Pionair, is due to start operating later this week, a Virgin spokesperson said on Monday, while a second BAe 146-200 was due to arrive from Europe in the next couple of months.
The Virgin spokesperson added the 737-300F would be operated until August, when it would be replaced with another Boeing 737 freighter, also to be flown by Airwork.
Virgin hoped its cargo division would bring in between $150 million and $200 million in annual revenue by 2017.
Meanwhile, Qantas’s dedicated freighter fleet of six aircraft for its new contract with Australia Post began flying on July 1. The Australian reported the aircraft, comprising two Boeing 737-300Fs, three BAe 146-300Fs and one Boeing 737-400F, have been repainted into StarTrack livery.
Harrison Grohn
says:Will they fly into sunshine coast?
john
says:so will the 146-200QC be used for passenger charters Friday to Sunday, assuming all freight requirements are Monday evening to Friday early am ?
Kim
says:I think I flew on a Convair with Airlines of SA between Pt Lincoln and Adelaide in 1970. Very comfortable flight.
GAGA
says:Why are they using a 60+ year old aircraft?
Russell Jensen
says:will VA paint the aircraft in there colours as what Qf does with there aircraft
Josh
says:I’d love to see VA using a converted A320 frieghter, just to see how they fair. Maybe the ability to have all cargo containerised could be the edge up on QF.
Bowcher
says:@GAGA , they are freighter aircraft. You will find all freighter aircraft are old
Ken Borough
says:“You will find all freighter aircraft are old”
What utter rubbish!
GAGA
says:Bowcher, where in Australia do I find other 60 year old freighter aircraft in commercial use? This must surely be rare. Freighters are not normally anywhere near that age. A 60 year old aircraft, still in commercial use is absolutely ancient, freighter or not.
AgentGerko
says:Freighters are usually old, note the B737-300s and even BAe146s are both out of production but the Convair is indeed a real vintage.
Mike
says:Three years after this article was first published, does Virgin Australia still have an airfreight division?