The CEO of Virgin Australia (VA, Brisbane International) told an aviation event in Brisbane last week that the airline had converted some B737 MAX orders and confirmed that it would acquire some B737-800s formerly placed at Rex - Regional Express (ZL, Wagga Wagga).
“We’ve converted twelve B737-10s to B737-8s to ensure that we’ve got a steady pipeline of aircraft coming into our business,” CEO Jayne Hrdlicka said.
Before executing the conversion deal, Virgin Australia's orderbook at Boeing included six B737-8s and twenty-five B737-10s. "We’ve got options for more -10s down the track," said Hrdlicka. The first of the B737-10s were originally due to start arriving at the airline in 2025 but have been pushed back to 2026 at the earliest.
ch-aviation reported earlier this year that Virgin Australia was looking at swapping -10s for more -8s. The airline already has eight B737-8s flying and expects the remaining six from earlier orders to ferry in by the end of 2025. The -8s arriving as a result of the conversion deal will start ferrying in from the second half of 2025.
“It’s really hard when you get a delay from your manufacturer, Boeing, then you hang onto aircraft longer than you planned. You suffer from the lack of growth or try to acquire new aircraft on the secondary market, which is really hard,” said Hrdlicka.
The CEO also said Virgin Australia had signed to take three B737-800s lessors had placed at Rex, which ended jet operations in July after filing for voluntary administration.
"We’re picking up a handful of the Rex aircraft that haven’t yet left the country to help give us more degrees of flexibility," she said. ADS-B flight tracking data indicates only one of nine former Rex B737s have so far left Australia, with VH-RQP (msn 37822) ferrying from Melbourne Tullamarine to Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta via Praya Lombok International on September 14.
Virgin Australia Group, whose carriers include Virgin Australia, Virgin Australia International and Virgin Australia Regional (VARA), operate a combined 96 aircraft, including seven A320-200s, five F70s, ten F100s, seven B737-700s, sixty-one B737-800s, one E190 (wet leased from Airnorth (Australia)), and five Saab 340Bs wet leased from Link Airways (FC, Canberra)). Aside from the MAX orders, Virgin Australia also recently placed an order for eight E190-E2s for its closed charter mining flights in Western Australia.
