Virgin Australia will allow customers to change their bookings without a fee until 2021
by Sharon Masige
- Virgin Australia has a new policy that lets passengers change their bookings without an extra change fee until January 2021.
- It’s designed to give passengers flexibility when booking flights.
- The new policy comes after Virgin Australia revealed it is axing flights to some regional locations.
- Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.
Virgin Australia has announced a new booking policy.
The airline is allowing passengers to make unlimited booking changes without any extra change fee until January 31 2021. This policy is under Virgin’s ‘Passenger Promise’ which aims to give customers more flexibility when booking flights.
“Whilst there is still uncertainty around border restrictions, we know that Australians want to start booking their travel and our Passenger Promise will give travellers the peace of mind they need to make a booking now,” a Virgin Australia spokesperson said in a statement.
“We’re hopeful that borders will reopen by Christmas and this new initiative to help get travellers on their next flight is the right step forward to rebooting the Australian tourism industry.”
The airline also reinforced the measures it has in place to ensure passenger safety on flights such as contactless check-in, a pre-flight health screening questionnaire for passengers when they check in and distancing between passengers where possible.
There’s also extra cleaning on flights, as well as complementary face masks and hand sanitiser.
Virgin Australia’s new policy come after the airline, which is under new owners Bain Capital, revealed it’s axing some of its regional flights. These include locations such as Ayers Rock, Albury, Tamworth, Hervey Bay and Port Macquarie, which will be withdrawn “for the foreseeable future”.
“With the changes to simplifying our fleet and ongoing subdued customer demand, we have been required to make some adjustments to our network,” a Virgin Australia spokesperson told Business Insider Australia on Thursday.
However, following Virgin’s regional flights announcement, Qantas revealed it will launch new flights between Brisbane and Port Macquarie depending on the reopening of state borders.
“We know there is significant pent up demand for domestic travel with Australians wanting to explore their own backyard,” QantasLink CEO John Gissing said in a statement.
“We expect the new flights to Port Macquarie will be popular with Queensland travellers looking to visit the beautiful coastal town so we hope an easing of travel restrictions will make this possible.”