OtardXO

Looking at booking flights Lhr -Jnb, VS showing no availability in all three classes between 03-18/04 on their website. Two flights a day really?? Do VS blackout dates or should I be looking at alternatives?

UKtravelbear

I assume this for reward flights?

No VS don't have black out dates but it's perfectly possible that the rewards they have relesed have already been booked - specially as your date range covers Easter school holidays

.

RAPC

Assuming the same re this being for reward flights as there is plenty of revenue availability from a quick look.

For the Easter period, we managed to secure LHR-HKG-LHR in UC out and PE back. Only a few dates opened up at the start in UC and these were soon gone, along with the PE availability on the dates that worked around school holidays in particular. Since then I have kept a reward seat tracker open on this and a couple of other routes and after the initial wave, very little has come up and what has come up, tends to be lower demand dates that work for ex-overseas and not ex-UK dates.

For a route like JNB during the Easter holidays, you need to be ready for when the initial seats are released and work to the dates that are covered. Beyond that, it's a waiting game in case anything changes nearer the time.

Edited to add the following:
Just done some searching and there is availability. eg for the following from LHR-JNB:
7th April - 9 seats in Y
8th April - 9 in Y, 2 in UC
9-13th - seats in Y
14th - 9 in Y, 5 in PE, 1 in UC

Seems pretty typical of Easter availability, with very little / nothing at the start of the school holidays (weekend of the 4th/5th)

OtardXO

Thanks UKtravelbear & RAPC for the info.

OtardXO

businesstraveller.com are reporting LHR-JNB being reduced from twice daily B787 to daily one on A350 from March 2020. Could this have something to do with availability, revenue or reward? Virgin still showing twice daily B787 on their website.

littlefish

Ok. Yes, Virgin have put their A350 onto this route from 29th March. So looks like a Summer schedule timing.
Given the extra front of plane capacity on the A350 (and presumably some internal data showing less traffic over the southern winter) VS have dropped both of the 789 rotations.
Overall J drops from 62 to 44 seats and Premium from 70 to 56 seats, each day each way.
This is now slowly inching its way through the booking systems.

There has been a knock-on effect on reward availability, it was pretty decent mid to end March and early April prior to all this bar the week where SA school hols end and UK ones start. However, some has now been withdrawn presumably due to the capacity drop. I suspect some availability may creep back closer in the Spring as bookings settle down.

I'm caught up in this and now get to suffer the big A350 Premium economy cabin, and 8 across, rather than the rather decent VS 789 PE cabin.
Not that I take this personally but VS seem determined to push me back to BA/Oneworld; they had Cape Town (now gone), they had the lovely 747 PE Upper Deck from LGW-Vegas (now gone and badly timed replacement from LHR); and now this. Grrrr!
The one saving grace is I was waiting for a shot at UC once the A350s deploy. Maybe this will finally be the route to do it.

cauchy

Is it just seasonal, or a permanent adjustment? I'd be surprised if it came back in full for the winter schedule (economy yields might be better, but the premium situation might be less clear-cut).

littlefish

It'll be interesting how this plays out. I do suspect the 789 pair will not come back for Winter 2020-21, sadly.
I was under the impression VS found timing benefits (especially ex-LHR) by having two flights. So the loss of pretty much the later flight will presumably hand some traffic back to BA.
However, very possibly the slot pair saved and extra 789 frame will have a safer yield to/from India or wherever. Certainly the A350 UC proposition to JNB is now much much better than BA's (old) Club World and VS may strengthen yields considerably in that critical LHR-JNB cabin … albeit at less than 30% BA's daily capacity.

cauchy

On the other hand, not having the option of choosing either an early or late departure ex-LHR could mean Virgin now loses whole bookings, and the A350 is too big.

What would be nice is a twice per week A332 CPT service in summer, with a daylight flight northbound. But this might be too adventurous for them!

Theirin

VS have a small fleet and that's going to necessitate trade-offs between the number of routes and the frequency of those routes. I can only assume they've done their research on this tradeoff for this route.


The simple truth is that they'll never be able to compete with BA or other airlines with 5x as many planes on frequency, so if flexibility of travel time is the most important factor that's going to count against VS.

Generally speaking I think people choose VS over BA /others for the overall travel experience, and that's going to remain the main selling point for choosing VS, and at least for UC the 351 is a big upgrade over the 787 for passenger experience.

cauchy

And indeed, these new, undepreciated planes sit in JNB all day doing nothing. This must be expensive.

On LHR-JNB it's a choice of leave LHR early (and get a full day in JNB or connect onwards), or leave LHR late (and get half a day in Johannesburg, or a night in another city after connecting). I don't think any more flights are needed to compete (indeed, this is why BA uses A380's on this route, rather than increasing frequency).