Virgin Australia’s newest Airbus A330-200 has entered revenue service, joining the carrier’s five other Airbus widebodies flying between Perth and Australia’s east coast capitals.
The first commercial flight of VH-XFJ took off from Melbourne as VA693 at 1837 local time on Tuesday October 7, landing in Perth three hours and 59 minutes later, according to flight tracking website Flightaware.
The aircraft, which arrived from the Airbus factory in Toulouse on September 25, spent 11 days in Brisbane before starting commercial service.
It was not expected to remain in its current configuration – 24 lie-flat business class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration and 255 economy seats – for long, given Virgin planned to upgrade all A330-200s to a new business class cabin featuring a 20 fully-flat suites.
The refits were due to begin in early 2015, with all six frames to have the new seats installed by August.
