The Virgin Blue Group of Airlines and Etihad Airways announced a new commercial partnership that will enable Virgin Blue’s international arm, V Australia, to launch direct services to Abu Dhabi in 2011 and the two airlines to offer a joint network of more than 100 destinations from October 1, 2010.
Together, Etihad and V Australia will move towards a total of 27 weekly services between Abu Dhabi and Australia – including double-daily services between Abu Dhabi and Sydney, daily Melbourne-Abu Dhabi flights and six frequencies per week between Abu Dhabi and Brisbane.
This announcement includes the decision to cease all V Australia services from Australia to Johannesburg and Phuket in February 2011, in order to redeploy its V Australia B777-300ER to operate on new routes between Australia and Abu Dhabi.