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Virgin is offering sale tickets from Sydney to Brisbane and Melbourne in late November – despite the border between the states remaining shut.
While the airline is offering free and unlimited booking changes, the move will put pressure on Queensland, NSW and Victoria to begin to lift border restrictions.
Queensland opened up to NSW on 10 July but closed to Sydney on 1 August, while the NSW-Victoria border shut earlier on 6 July.
On Thursday, Virgin launched a new sale to mark its 20th birthday, which will run from today until 27 October.
Currently, you can buy tickets from Sydney to Brisbane from 25 November–15 December for $109; and from Sydney to Melbourne from 25 November–16 December for $115.
The airline is still allowing customers to change flights without incurring fees until 31 January.
“With borders slowly reopening and more Australians excited to explore their own backyard, we’re making it easy for them to get to wherever they need to go, with our 20th birthday sale fares from just $69 including baggage and seat selection,” said the business in a statement.
“We’re thrilled to include Victorians in our birthday sale and we remain hopeful that they’ll soon be able to travel more freely so we’ve included a host of great value fares to and from Melbourne with travel dates up until the end of March 2021.
“The aviation and tourism industries rely on a connected nation and we hope that borders continue to safely reopen and more Australians return to the skies.”
Earlier this week, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian hinted her state’s border to Victoria could reopen in a month if case numbers remain low.
“I would suspect it will be at least a fortnight after restrictions have been eased substantially to be able to assess how safe it is for us to open that border,” said Premier Berejiklian, seemingly referring to the Victoria’s 2 November date for reopening shops.
“We are very keen to see what happens in Victoria once further restrictions are eased because that’s the real test.”
Australian Aviation has previously reported how Queensland’s decision to reshut its border to NSW caused Brisbane to become busier than Sydney by a huge margin.
The knock-on effect of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s restrictions meant Brisbane clocked up 324,188 total passengers in August versus Sydney’s 129,000.
Significantly, the Queensland capital’s numbers were down only slightly from July (358,537) whereas the NSW capital’s collapsed 60 per cent (from 317,000).
roger
says:I think Victoria’s borders are currently open to residents from all other states. But all states have banned entry of people travelling from Victoria.
Alicia
says:When can we travel from Queensland to Melbourne there is never any mention of that and it is real frustrating we have nothing but other states still have it always talk about Sydney NSW da NZ Brisbane buy where is the fricken good coast fit into this HELLO wake up for us. I need to see my family I am depressed and just need a break open the boarder
Scott
says:The final paperwork hasn’t YET been signed for Bain’s ownership of this badly-run airline.
Anything can happen between now, & 31-10-2020. A week in the current aviation crisis is a long time.
People buying tickets with them???
Elizabeth Brown
says:Victoria has never closed its state boarders
Adam Thorn
says:True, but all borders are closed to Victoria. This is one of the reasons why the issue with returning NZ passengers crossing the border occurred.
Thanks,
Adam