Virgin Australia (ex Tigerair Australia) Boeing B737-800 VH-YVA Re-Enters Service and Calls into Hamilton Island Airport

An interesting visitor into Hamilton Island Airport on Sunday 20 December was Virgin Australia Boeing B737-800 VH-YVA.  It arrived from and later departed back to Brisbane as VOZ1497/8.

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VH-YVA re-entered service with Virgin Australia only on Friday 18 December after operating for Virgin's low cost subsidiary Tigerair Australia since April 2019.

File photo

VH-YVA was withdrawn from use and stored at Melbourne (Tullamarine) in late March this year and was finally taken out of storage and flown from there to Townsville in mid-November where it was re-painted into Virgin Australia livery at the local Flying Colours paint shop.  As shown above, VH-YVA has again picked up its previous name of 'Eurong Beach'.

Of interest, VH-YVA was delivered new to Virgin Australia in mid-2011 and flew with the airline until February 2019 when it was transferred to Tigerair Australia.  After being re-painted into Tigerair livery also in Townsville, VH-YVA entered service with Tigerair in April 2019.

Of further interest, with the Tigerair Australia brand now gone, the remaining Boeing B737-800 operated by the airline remain in storage - VH-VUX, VH-VUB and VH-VOY remain in storage at Melbourne (Tullamarine), while VH-VUD and VH-VOR have been flown to Alice Springs for storage at the Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS) facility.

UPDATE!  On Sunday 24 January 2021, VH-VOY departed Australia for good via Brisbane and Darwin to the Philippines and further to China.  It has also since been re-registered as 2-VVOY.

Photos taken by Tim Bowrey and Lloyd Fox  ©