Virgin Australia says its low-cost unit Tigerair Australia will become an all Boeing 737 operator within three years as part of fleet simplification efforts at the airline group.
Currently, Tigerair flies 14 A320s on domestic routes and three 737-800s on flights from Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne to Bali.
Those 14 A320s will be progressively replaced with Boeing 737s over the next three years, according to a slide presentation released to the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday on Virgin’s proposed A$852 million capital raising.
The move to replace Tigerair A320s with 737s comes after Virgin previously announced in June it would withdraw all E190 jets, as well as between four and six ATR turboprops, in an effort to reduce the number of aircraft types, improve fleet utilisation and reduce costs.
“Tigerair-branded A320 aircraft will be replaced with B737 aircraft,” Virgin said in the slide presentation.
“Fleet simplification through reduction in fleet types will make the business more scalable and productive.”
The airline group has also disposed of all eight Fokker 50 aircraft that were previously operated by Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA).
The slide presentation did not refer to the two A320s operated by VARA that serve Christmas/Cocos (Keeling) Islands, as well as charter and fly-in/fly-out clients.
(culled from australianaviation.com.au)
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