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Virgin’s axed Cairns–Haneda route was its second-lowest-performing international service in April, according to official BITRE data.
Flights were just 65.2 per cent full inbound and 49.6 per cent full outbound on the Japan route, well below Virgin’s average international load factors of 81.4 per cent and 75.2 per cent respectively.
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The only Virgin international route with a lower percentage of seats filled in April was to Apia in Samoa, which saw outbound seat utilisation of 44.5 per cent and inbound utilisation of 39.3 per cent.
In contrast, Virgin’s strongest-performing route for the month was Brisbane–Port Vila, which was above even Bali services with 91.9 per cent of outbound and 87.9 per cent of inbound seats full in the last complete month before the collapse of Air Vanuatu.
Virgin says its Apia services are impacted by seasonal fluctuations, with the December and January holiday periods having performed strongly; the airline is still committed to its short-haul Pacific services and plans to increase Apia flights to five per week in the upcoming end-of-year peak.
Virgin announced this week it would drop the underperforming Cairns–Haneda service from 24 February and reassign its 737 MAX 8s to domestic flights. Unlike most of Virgin’s international services, the route relied heavily on inbound travel, which turned out below its forecasts and was weighed down by a weak yen against the Australian dollar.
“Our international network continues to be a central part of our strategy. Withdrawing from Cairns-Tokyo services was a tough decision, but unfortunately the recovery of inbound visitors from Japan is significantly below forecast and therefore operating our own service to Tokyo is no longer commercially viable,” said Virgin Australia chief transformation and strategy officer Alistair Hartley.
“We know this is disappointing news and we are sorry for the impact this decision will have on those guests booked to travel with us from 24 February 2025.”
By comparison, Japan has also been relatively weak for Jetstar, which saw 75.9 per cent of outbound and 69.5 per cent of inbound seats full in April, and was close to the average for Qantas at 83 per cent outbound and 82.6 per cent inbound.
Jetstar’s weakest international destination for April was Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, while Qantas’ was Dili in East Timor.
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says:Yes, they play an important role within any industry but “number crunchers” have to be restrained, more flexible and consultative and at times they have to be readvised of their position on the decision-making ladder of control. Automation has allowed industry to micromanage virtually every area of its expertise and we have to remember that if we are only looking for “negatives”, that’s all we will find. Naturally a 100% load factor would be good but if that be the case the enterprise is not offering a service; somewhere short of that figure is an optimum but just because the resultant figure is south of the optimum that doesn’t mean, pull the plug and push off because you have offended those that support you, particularly the Japanese and not the won over the “friends that as yet you haven’t met” Marketing is not just a single unit of work, it is wide ranging and broad spectrum and if the result is not that which is desired maybe the company approach with its own inhouse climatic, scheduling, pricing and operational facilities on offer doesn’t excite the punters. Most important one needs time and constant monitoring of the market in question and watch you back on what the competition is offering. If after departure from that market you find the answer to success, it is very, very difficult indeed to recoup your losses.