Review: Virgin Australia Business Class 737 Sydney To Melbourne

This must have been your favourite trip ever – looks like you had an amazing soft product on all four flights.

Virgin is the better domestic airline in Australia I find. The food quality in business is consistently fantastic and I've yet to experience bad service. Given that it's a one hour flight essentially, I'm always impressed at how much food they do serve!

While Qantas service is also good, the food isn't up to par (surprising since their lounge food is actually good).

On a 73 minute flight I'll take free food over paid Wi-Fi any day; they have their priorities right!!

I was on the same route up front too on 5/11/17 and our aircraft did have wifi and worked flawlessly. I was very impressed with the speed and reliability, gate to gate. It's being installed through the fleet. I also had the muesli and agree that the croissant was fantastic. Service overall was impressive.

"Why can’t service on US airlines be this consistently good?"

Because Australians are generally nicer people. Simple.

How was the hot towel service and barista grade cappuccinos? Since you loved the breakfast so much, you'll be glad to know is sold at any golden arches location. 🙂

A couple of days ago I was flying Delta domestic First. Got asked what I wanted for pre departure beverage, and that was the extent of the conversation between me and the FA for the entire flight. I was not even served that beverage!

@Evan, I think it's mostly two-fold: different service culture, and unions. You don't have an incentive to do good work if you know you can't get fired.

Don't recall John Borghetti having legs like that

@Lucky If it's not too personal a question, why don't you eat bacon?

@Malc: "no I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine". 🙂

I recently flew Virgin Australia economy from Perth to Melbourne (737), and was pleasantly surprised. We had great movie screens and selection, and they brought around a choice of two boxed dinners (chicken or veggie) with dessert and free wine. Very pleasant flight attendants, friendly seat mate, plenty of storage. On a short flight (by my standards, anything under 4 hours) why worry about flying in front? Johannesburg to Perth, and Melbourne to LAX, yes, indeed, get a front seat/bed. But a 73 minute flight? You could do it standing up, hanging from a bus strap!

@evan you clearly haven't worked with Australians if you think that's the case

Nice review mate. Just for the record Virgin Australia has just started rolling out WiFi on it's aircraft with all to be complete by next year.

VX does 8 seats in F (much greater seat pitch) and a rope between Y and F. Sounds like there is some sharing of layout and design.

How is it remotely impressive that the cabin supervisor was able to read your name on the boarding class and then say the word "welcome" before repeating it?

Evan - Australians aren't particularly nicer than Americans... They're a much nicer society (e.g. they generally believe the poor should be allowed medicine), but on an individual level it's no different. I also doubt there's any correlation between the niceness of a country and the quality of its airlines.

Freetravelguy - I'm afraid you're probably wrong on both counts. The service culture in the US is far higher (I hate it as it's clearly fake and built on a system of giving bribes, but it's clearly better service!) and Virgin has unions too. It's difficult to fire people in many countries, including Australia, anyway - union or no union. Employee protections in the US seem notably absent to an outsider like me (presumably the reason behind having powerful unions in the first place?).

Pay people well, you don't need tips to get good service! (Check out the min wage). Australian respect each other.

I fly VA all the time as a Platinum and generally agree that their business class is very good. They have some struggles as their costs have risen and they have a gnarly fleet - 777, 330, 320, 737, E190 (on the way out), ATR72, and via Alliance, the F50 and F100. The international arm is too small - example: they have 5 x 777 which means they can't do daily service from Brisbane or Melbourne.

They have a lot of partnerships like Etihad, Singapore and Delta and that works quite well for me.

There's a lot of goodwill towards VA across Australia where culturally we 'root for the underdog'.

As to Australians being nicer than Americans - NO! We're just different. Give me American any day for fun, first to dance at a party. Us Aussies stand there with our arms folded. American bands touring here for the first time can be quite alarmed at our reserve -v- back home.

I should have said, 'they have 5 x 777 which means they can’t do daily service TO LAX from Brisbane or Melbourne.'

For such a short flight I don't know that it's even worth it to fly business. I mean I can endure 1.5 hours on a NYC subway with no air conditioning when its 110 degrees in the train and 100% humidity I can deal with economy for that duration. And actually as I recall my economy flight between melbourne and sydney some 8 years ago on Quantas wasn't bad.

Virgin Australia has a terrific Business Class product, especially on the A330 and 777.

By the way, at the risk of sounding rude, "flavorful" is not a word in the English language - it's a very old neologism. 🙂 It's been around in the USA - but not England - for 80 years, but it's still not a real word!

I think you meant "tasty".

Well done Virgin, its always excellent service. Awesome review!!!! I flew the 737-800 Business class Melbouren to Brisbane on VA328, it was great.... The service is very friendly!!!!

@Callum, disagree. I could be wrong, but I have traveled enough that the U.S. having a better service culture just not my perception. In the aggregate, I don't think U.S. crews care as much as other countries' about whether you have a great flight experience or not, and it shows in their demeanor. Like I said, I could be wrong, but that's just not what I have experienced.

I'm really intrigued by the CEO's choice to in the jump seat. Of course tis is the 3rd best seat on the plane! but then he's locked away while the customers re served and therefore removes himself from the most important perspective on the plane - that of the passengers!! Of course this is just one flight but to me this still speaks volumes.

@ Phil -- Don't disagree in general, though another way to look at it is that the flight was completely sold out due to two other cancelations, so maybe he wanted to sit in the cockpit jumpseat so that he wouldn't displace a revenue passenger.

I guess that makes as much sense yeah. I know nothing about the guy either just to be clear! I just love it when the big shots like CEOs are at the coal face showing they value the customer experience. Like you say though, he may have had no option.

I usually fly Perth to Sydney and have preferred Virgin as their departure and arrivals are good considering time zones. The lounges are better with Sydney having it own dedicated check-in.
Now due to Covid and boarder closures ( I am supportive of the WA Governments policy as 1920 Spanish flue showed this the best policy) , it looks like we have lost the A330 size aircraft.
This is not good as we have between a 5 and 5.5 hour flight depending on winds. I have travelled & 737-800 business, never again. I am not big nor is my wife but we both found the cabin restrictive and considering the costs not worth the extra.
I would like to see Virgin offer a larger aircraft if not an A330 then an aircraft with a larger cabin akin to the A330.
The Perth to Sydney hop is a pain in an 737, economy in an A330 is preferable to Business in a 737. I don't like the 3x3 cabin in economy nor the only 8 seats in business.
It is either a bigger aircraft or lower business fares which al least will take the pain out of cramped cabins.