Virgin Australia to refit MAX-8 and acquire Rex aircraft following Boeing delays

Departing Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka has announced that the airline will refit several of its existing MAX-8 aircraft and will acquire some REX aircraft as delays continue with the delivery of its Boeing 737 MAX order.

Hrdlicka also rejected rumours of floating of Virgin Australia on the market and any talk of Qatar investing in the airline.

“Today I’m making a small announcement. I know people were expecting a big one, but we have an order book with Boeing that includes MAX-8 and -10s,” she told the audience on Day 2 of the CAPA Airline Leader Summit Australia Pacific 2024 being held in Brisbane.

“We’ve converted 12 -10s to -8s to ensure that we’ve got a steady pipeline of aircraft coming into our business,” she said.

“We have eight (MAX) -8s today they’re performing so well for us they’re so fuel efficient, quiet and just (offer) very good performance for our pilots and our cabin crew love the aircraft and customers love the aircraft.

“We’ve got another six coming in the next 12 months and then we’ve got another 12 that we’ve just converted and so then we’ve got options for more -10s down the track.

“We’re picking up a handful of the Rex aircraft that haven’t yet left the country to help give us more degrees of flexibility as we adjust with Boeing’s needs to manage the challenges that both Boeing and Airbus are facing with respect to getting their supply chains back in balance.”

Virgin Australia received its fourth MAX-8 in March and was expecting a further 31 new 737 MAX aircraft, including six MAX-8s and 25 MAX-10s.

The airline, now owned by private equity company Bain Capital, expects to only receive four more MAX-8s in 2024 from an original order of 14. The remaining six are expected to arrive in 2025.

The MAX-10s are not expected to arrive until 2026 at the earliest.

As for an initial public offering (IPO) of Virgin Australia, Hrdlicka said the runours were untrue.

“I hate to be the bearer of same old, same old, but first that’s a matter for our shareholders,” she said.

As for the Qatar stake, “we don’t play with rumour and innuendo and there has been a lot of creative fiction written”, she said.

Hrdlicka, the Tennis Australia chair, says she will now spend more time on addressing issues within that game. Following the loss of her husband to cancer, and the recent death of her father, Hrdlicka said she will also be spending more time with her two boys, aged 17 and 19.

Hrdlicka was appointed Virgin Australia CEO in November 2020 after it was sold to Bain Capital and decided to leave the role earlier this year after four years of “heavy lifting”.

Virgin Australia was placed into voluntary administration in April 2020 with debts of $6.8 billion, after the federal government and Richard Branson’s Virgin Group declined to provide additional funding to save the airline.

CAPA also announced today that the Airline Leader Summit Australia Pacific 2025 will be held in Cairns 31 July – 1 August.

(Editor’s note: This story has been updated to offer the correct aircraft type, Boeing MAX -8 and -10.)

Feature image: Jayne Hrdlicka at the CAPA Summit. Photo: Grant Jones