Trip report: Virgin Australia business class Cairns Brisbane Sydney
Ah, Cairns Airport. Swealtering in Far North Queensland, the small airport gets a lot of traffic, including myself, taking a trip back to New South Wales.
For some reason online checkin and the checkin kiosks were all out of action, but manual check in was pretty perfunctory, with only a glance at a Frequent Flyer card. I need not have worried, as it took at best five minutes before I took the stairs up to Virgin Australia's swish Business Class lounge.
Business Class to Sydney cost a mere $200 for the fare, and another $140 for Plusgrade to Business Class. I've previously had excellent results bidding using Plusgrade at the minimum amounts, and so it was again. My upgrade cleared for all sectors the day before.
The Cairns Virgin Australia Business Class lounge is large and swish.
If it can be criticised, it's for the rather bland furnishings which are typical of all Virgin lounges, but at least it isn't the rush in, rush out style of the Virgin Australia Sydney lounge.
Breakfast was pretty normal: there was a barista making coffee, a rare delight in the lounge, followed by yoghurt, pancakes, ham and cheese.
There is an excellent view out of the windows, and time to see the early morning international flights arrive, including a rare bird - the Air New Zealand Boeing 777 at Cairns, plus the usual Jetstar arrivals, and Hainaiin Airlines arriving from China.
With Cathay Pacific pulling out of Cairns, it's good to see there is at least an international link northwards.
There was no boarding call, but it was clear that our Virgin 737 was ready to depart, so I went down to the main part of the airport to see a huge queue snaking through the airport: the aircraft was completely full.
Thankfully, there was a priority boarding queue, and I was onboard in a flash, despite a few other passengers saying, loudly, behind me 'excuse me, there is a queue'. I know, that's why I jumped into the Business Class lane.
What is Virgin Australia Business Class 737 seat like?
Virgin Australia Business Class on the Boeing 737 has eight proper business class seats at the front of the aircraft, and once boarding it's clear we're in for a completely different experience compared to European Business Class, where the seats are just normal economy seats with the armrest moved wider. This in part reflects the market Virgin operates in. European Business Class is designed for short flights of around 45 minutes on average, but where typically around half of the aircraft is flying Business Class: still the norm in Northern Europe.
However Business loads can vary wildly depending on the time of day, with early afternoon flights typically flown by leisure travellers. However, in Australia, few people fly in Business, with a fairly consistent load of just 6 per cent of the aircraft wanting to fly up front, but with much longer journeys.
Therefore, with Virgin's move to compete head on with Qantas at the premium end of the market, it had to offer full Business Class seats. All eight of them at the front of the aircraft, and every one was full for this flight.
Seats in Business Class on the Virgin Australia Boeing 737 have full Business Class leather seats with an embossed Virgin logo, plus adjustable headrests and a decent recline. They are wide enough to feel comfortable with a stranger sitting next to you, and have a 38-inch seat pitch, which is distance between your seat and the seat in front, although with only two rows, pitch is a little moot. Mind you, if you plan to sleep through the flight, go for the second row, as there is nowhere to rest your feet in the first row.
There is also a pull out table, and a small extendable cocktail table, but no inflight video screen any more, now Virgin has ditched IFE. There are however power sockets on the seats in business class, and most of the aircraft also feature a USB port.
Virgin Australia Business Class meals
As soon as we're sitting down the crew come around, offering a water or juice: from mid-morning, the crew also offer sparkling wine as a third alternative it's a pleasant option, that most other carriers have abandoned for short haul business class.
It's also of interest to note that the crew always offer Australian Sparkling Wine, as opposed to calling it Champagne, which might get them into trouble with some French vineyards.
Once in the air, the first of the two flights today offers 'late breakfast' which is either an omelette, or Salmon and beetroot.
The cold salmon is, well, different, but actually quite welcome for a light breakfast. It comes with pureed beetroot and humus. There is also a small bowl of yoghurt with pineapple and blueberries, a roll with strawberry jam and butter. And tea, lots of tea.
The meals are designed by Luke Mangan who is an Australian chef, who creates genuinely innovative food, with a local, contemporary twist. It's classy, but not odd enough to put most passengers off.
I always find Virgin Australia's crew and the quality of the Luke Mangan meals to be generally excellent. And so it was on this occasion, with a light delicate flavour, and great beetroot.
By the time we were approaching Brisbane, it was getting on for midday, and I accepted the crew's offer of sparkling wine. Once I accepted, noticeably half the cabin also joined in, making for a quite a jolly landing, right on time in Brisbane.
Virgin Australia in flight entertainment
Virgin Australia no longer have video screens, and instead have joined the BYO device revolution, with IFE available via wifi on passengers tablets and phone.
So long as you remember to install the app before you fly, it works well, with great picture quality and sound. There are quite a lot of current run films, and TV series.
Plus of course the usual moving map which showed us flying south through Queensland.
Out of the window was an amazing view of the Whitsunday Islands.
Virgin Australia Brisbane lounge
I only had 30 minutes on the ground in Brisbane, but it's Virgin Australia's home base, and as such the lounge is slightly bigger than normal, so I popped in for a look around.
At lunchtime, it was also rammed to the gills, with only a few spare seats. We've already extensively reviewed the latest version of the modern design and complementary bar at Brisbane Virgin Australia lounge, which is now vastly different to when it was the old Ansett lounge.
Frequent Virgin Australia passengers will be used to the food in the lounge, which has the usual staples here including fresh salads, plus breads and ingredients for ham, cheese and pineapple toasted sandwiches. Confused as the pineapple? Don't be - it's Queensland after all.
The lounge has a somewhat less refined focus that Melbourne, and that's echoed by the dedicated espresso and wine bar in the centre of the lounge. It was a concept originally debuted in Melbourne, but here in Brisvegas, it's grown to comprise seats for solo travellers who like to sit at the bar.
There is wine a plenty in the Brisbane lounge, including sparkling wine and no less than three types of Savignon.
How do you get into Virgin Australia Lounge? For free if you are in Virgin Australia business class, or also for Gold and Platinum members of Velocity Frequent Flyer, or indeed by paying a yearly membership fee of $750AUD a year.
While in Brisbane I could see all the aircraft of Alliance Airways, which is virtually unknown outside Australia, but it is now the biggest airline flying Fokker aircraft, including Fokker 70 and no less than 25 Fokker 100s, some still flying in their old Helvetic Airways colours.
Leaving Brisbane, we also passed the Singapore Airline flight, and a rare bird, an A340 whitetail Air New Zealand has been using in place of it's normal aircraft.
Virgin Australia Brisbane to Sydney in Business Class
It was pretty much the same experience down to Sydney with the same seats on a similar 737. There were tasty main meals on offer plus proactive drink top-ups from the crew.
I started with the Ink Gin and fever tree tonic. Ink Gin is a premium dry gin made with 13 organic botanicals, including a mix of traditional and Australian natives, such as locally grown lemon myrtle leaf, coriander seed, Tasmanian pepper berry and freshly peeled sundried sweet orange peel. It has the most amazing effect when it is poured into the tonic, with a colour-changing swish in the glass when it turns purple with tonic water, or pink with soda water.
The Second meal of the day was pasta with beef - quite a nice, if an unusual choice.
Interestingly, meals on this flight were completely prepared and plated in the galley, with the finished tray appearing from behind the curtain and carried to your seat.
I also tried a beer, with Great Northern beer being appropriate for my trip down from Queensland.
We landed in Sydney on time, and gently pulled up to the gate.
Virgin Australia Business Class review
So is Business Class worth it on Virgin Australia? For the price, most definitely. I've paid four times the price before now, for business class in Europe that just has an uprated meal. Instead, there was a true Business Class seat, lounge access, a choice of decent hot food, and unlimited drinks. The only downside of flying the way I did, by buying economy and then upgrading, is you neither guarantee you'll be in Business Class. And, you only earn Status Credits at the economy rate and the flight posted with just basic economy miles, but you can't have everything.
Virgin Australia is definitely one I would recommend.
See the full Trip report: Virgin Australia business class Cairns to Brisbane video:
| Trip report: Virgin Australia business class Cairns Brisbane Sydney | |
|---|---|
Lux-traveller.com rating:7 out of10  | |
| Seats: | 6 - Large reclining leather seats |
| Food: | 6 - surprisingly good |
| Service: | 8 - Really good |
| IFE: | 6 - BYO device |
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