Australian airlines plan services to Phuket

V Australia and partner will offer nonstop services to Phuket from three Aussie cities.

V Australia, Australia?s new full-service airline, will operate nonstop flights to Phuket from Melbourne and Brisbane, while its sister airline, Pacific Blue Airlines, Will operate a service from Perth.

V Australia will start twice weekly services from Brisbane, 22 November and a weekly service from Melbourne, 3 December. The Carrier will be the only airline to offer nonstop flights to Phuket from Brisbane and Melbourne.

Brisbane?s flight departs Sunday at 0925 and arrives in Phuket at 1540. It returns 1815 and lands in Brisbane at 0540 on the following day.

Another flight departs Fridays at 0945 and arrives in Phuket at 1540. The return flight departs Phuket at 1925 and lands in Melbourne at 0800 on the following day. The Melbourne-Phuket service departs every Thursday, at 1200 and lands in Phuket at 1640.

V Australia, a member of the Virgin Blue Airlines group, started services last February with Sydney-Los Angeles route.  The airline is due to take delivery of its fourth Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in a three-class seat configuration ? 33 in business, 40 premium economy and 288 in economy.

Virgin Blue Airlines Group chief executive, Brett Godfrey, indentified key destinations in the US, Thailand and South Africa as the targets for leisure travel related services out of bases in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

From Melbourne, it will offer a to Los Angeles service, twice weekly, from 1 December and from the same city to Johannesburg, 13 March 2010.

The airline has also lodged an application with Australian authorities to operate flights to Fiji.

Pacific Blue Airlines, an international short haul of Virgin Blue will launch direct flights to Phuket, 14 November, as it continues to expand both a domestic and international route network out of Phuket, Western Australia.

The twice weekly service to Phuket will use a Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The aircraft seats 192 passengers ? 12 in premium economy class and 180 in economy.
 
Sourced = The TTR Weekly