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22 November, 2021

Virgin Australia recruiting for nearly 600 new roles as it prepares to welcome seven new aircraft

Virgin Australia’s frontline team will be completely stood up by December, with hundreds of new roles to be recruited and more aircraft to be added to the airline’s fleet.

Speaking at a staff event at Virgin’s Brisbane hangar last week, CEO Jayne Hrdlicka thanked team members for their dedication, loyalty and support since the airline’s relaunch 12 months ago.

Hrdlicka said it had been a huge year for the airline in so many ways, “and it wouldn’t have been possible to be in the position we are today, standing here, more competitive than ever, marking one year since our relaunch, if not for our amazing people”.

Virgin’s CEO confirmed the entire workforce would be stood up by next month, and that the airline has close to 600 roles advertised across five states to support the introduction of new aircraft, including in engineering, pit crew, cabin crew and corporate.

Virgin is also continuing to add to its fleet, with letters of intent signed on seven Boeing 737NG aircraft.

Over the last 12 months since its relaunch, the airline has announced it will grow its 737 fleet by over 45 per cent, from 58 aircraft to 84 aircraft, with the additional seven aircraft announced at last week’s staff event.

An additional two A320s also have been recently added to Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA), the group’s West Australian resource operation, bringing its total A320 fleet number to seven, along with a number of F100 aircraft.

“This fleet growth underlines the confidence we have in the future of our business and the industry generally. Vaccination rates are rising, borders are opening and demand is returning,” Hrdlicka said.

“We are really positive about travel restarting as borders open more fully. We have used our time well while the industry was quiet and are well-advanced on all aspects of our transformation strategy, and we fully intend to continue growing with demand to ensure we operate at roughly 33 per cent of the domestic market.

“This enables us to continue to deliver the right mix of destinations with high frequency to support both our business and leisure purpose guests. It also means continued jobs growth at Virgin Australia, and our team are delighted to be welcoming new family members to the organisation.

“The strength of Virgin Australia lies in our people, who have been the most extraordinary inspiration through the toughest of times with border closures and stand-downs.

“They have stayed positive, been incredibly flexible, demonstrated such loyalty and commitment, and worked hard every day to make a difference for our guests and our airline.

“The passion for our airline runs deep through all of our team members and has helped us all get through the long periods of very little flying.”

Last month, Virgin enjoyed the biggest conversion rate of flight searches to sales in a 24-hour period since 2018.

The airline unveiled the addition of 10 aircraft to its fleet in April and a further nine aircraft in August, with all to be operational over the peak summer season.

The business has announced 12 new domestic routes since September, with international operations to commence next month.

Virgin will shortly resume short-haul international services, with a schedule of services to Fiji, Bali and New Zealand, commencing with flights to Fiji on 16 December 2021.

The airline has also announced that for two days only, Velocity members are able to redeem their points on any available economy seat on the airline’s domestic network, on all flights operated by Virgin departing between 1 December 2021 and 31 March 2022.

In what is Velocity’s largest-ever consumer reward seat promotion, millions and millions of economy reward seats with no blackout dates will literally be up-for-grabs, with Velocity members having until midnight this Tuesday 23 November 2021 to book.

Plus, until 17 December 2021, Velocity members will receive a 20 per cent discount with Points Booster when they purchase between 1,000 and 100,000 points.

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a320 aircraft airline aviation Boeing 737NG fleet jayne hrdlicka VARA virgin virgin australia Virgin Australia Regional Airlines