This week passengers travelling with Air Vanuatu are facing cancelled flights and major travel disruption due to a technical issue impacting the airlines sole Boeing 737 aircraft. The plane flies on routes between Port Vila (Vanuatu) to Brisbane, Sydney, and Auckland. Questions about reliability have been raised so lets look at the options to get between Vanuatu and Australia – Air Vanuatu or Virgin Australia.
Fleet
Air Vanuatu has a tiny fleet of only 2 aircraft, an ATR 72 and a Boeing 737 NG/MAX. The 737 is relatively young at only 7.7 years old but it is the only aircraft the airline has for international operations.
Virgin Australia on the other hand has a fleet of 84 737- 700/800/MAX aircraft with an average age of 11.6 years.
What’s happened to the Air Vanuatu Plane?
The airline is currently ‘stranded’ in Brisbane awaiting an important replacement part.
According to an airline spokesperson, “The cause of these disruptions is unscheduled technical work that is required on the aircraft. This urgent engineering work is needed to ensure that the long term schedule integrity is restored moving forward.”
Our thoughts?
Despite the mammoth disruption this causes, AirlineRatings, a website focused on aviation safety, applauds the airline for taking such an unpopular decision to ensure the safety of everyone who boards that aircraft. When it comes to airplane maintenance there simply isn’t any room for error and we would hope despite the negative press that the airline would make this decision time and time again.
What is does however highlight is the need for ‘back up plans’ and by that we mean back up aircraft.
The Eat, Drink, Play, Relax in Vanuatu facebook page is riddled with stories of Air Vanuatu flight cancellations and delays. There are stories of one hour delays up to 2 days and customer service that is hard to get a hold of. Among all this is announcements from the airline to start direct flights to Christchurch and increase routes to existing destinations.
Economy onboard offering international flights.
Virgin Australia offers economy passengers a ‘buy on board’ menu with complimentary tea, coffee and water. All other drinks are for purchase. The airline also offers in flight entertainment via streaming to your own device. In terms of seating, economy seats offer a 17inch width, 30 inch seat pitch and 3 inch recline.
Air Vanuatu offers its economy passengers a complimentary inflight hot meal service and drinks including alcoholic. The airline also offers in flight entertainment via streaming to your own device. In terms of seating, economy seats offer a 17inch width, 31-32 inch seat pitch and 3 inch recline.
Both airlines offer seats with extra legroom as well as a business class cabin.
So who to fly with?
Overall Air Vanuatu offers a more comfortable and traditional experience in economy however when it comes to reliability and ‘back up plans’ Virgin Australia win hands down.
Of course any airline can succumb to maintenance induced cancellations but ultimately these will be better handled and navigated with an airline that has a bigger fleet and staff base. When making a decision of who to fly with we would consider the cost of the airfare and whether or not we had ‘room to move’ on our dates of travel should unforeseen circumstances arise.
