The first two Skywest aircraft have been rebranded to Virgin Australia as the airline officially launched its new regional operation in Perth.
Virgin Australia Regional Airlines will operate 32 aircraft, with 800 weekly flights serving 41 destinations and go head to head with Qantas.
Chief executive John Borghetti said the intergration of Skywest, which Virgin acquired for $100 million, would unlock new opportunities to capture a greater slice of the fly-in-fly-out charter market.
"Western Australia is one of the fastest growing aviation markets and a very important part of our strategy," he said. "We have made significant investment over the past two years with the introduction of our internationally configured Airbus A330 aircragy on services between the East and West Coast, increased frequencies to the resource-rich Pilbara region and established a large crew base in Perth."
