Virgin Australia to operate flights between Melbourne and Hong Kong from July 2017
Following the strategic alliance between Virgin Australia and HNA Aviation, Virgin Australia has just announced plans to introduce its first flights to Hong Kong from Melbourne starting from 05 July 2017. The airline company will operate five flights per week on an Airbus A330-200 with 255 seats with a 2-4-2 configuration in Economy cabin.
Virgin Australia A330 Business Class | Photo Credit: Virgin Australia
Flights will depart Melbourne five-times a week at 12:35AM every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and at 10:25AM as well as 09:40AM on Mondays and Wednesdays respectively. The return flight from Hong Kong will depart at 07:50PM every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, arriving in Melbourne at 08:20AM the next day.
Flight distance from Melbourne to Hong Kong is approximately 4,590 miles and the flight duration is slightly under 10 hours. If you are thinking about redeeming some of your Velocity Points, it will only cost you 59,500 Points one-way on Business which is not bad at all!
Having checked out the American Express Lounge and the Qantas International Business Lounge on my flight out to Auckland, I decided to head over to the relatively-new Plaza Premium Lounge here in the Melbourne Airport before my flight. While I did not expect to be won over by this lounge, it is now my favourite airport lounge in this airport - the space is beautiful, the food is decent and the quality of coffee is surprisingly good. Even though my previous flight on Qantas’ A380 in Business Class was rather unimpressive, I was really looking forward to this MEL-SIN flight on their flagship Business Class product.