Review of Virgin Australia flight from Perth to Melbourne in Economy

I usually spend more time in Perth but I needed to be in Melbourne this weekend and the US the next weekend, so it was a very short stay in Perth (I'll be back next month). Avoiding Jetstar, Virgin was the cheapest option between Perth and Melbourne, though I did look at Qantas miles or multi city continuing to the US and so on. This flight was booked for AU$215/US$139 during the Happy Hour sale. This was the Choice fare which includes a 23kg checked bag. Reasonable price for this route.
Virgin is basically the default airline for domestic Aussie flights for me, it's better than Jetstar and generally cheaper than Qantas. With this flight, it overtakes United to become my most-flown airline post-pandemic. The last time I went to Melbourne was in 2021 (on Jetstar) which ended up being cut short to rush back to Perth (on Virgin) as Western Australia was closing the state border with because of more Victorian COVID cases.

I had to go the airport a little extra early this time.

Probably the best thing about flying Virgin is going through T1 and not T3/4, the Qantas area which is like a whole other, much worse airport.

The airport was extremely quiet.

The domestic side of the terminal is the Virgin area (if that wasn't already clear).

Pretty much no staff since there's self check-in and bag drop.

Bag drop can be a little frustrating, if the tag is slightly off place it can't scan so it takes a little while to get it right sometimes. But it was early, and the flight had gotten delayed by around 10 minutes already because of aircraft issues:
On the day before my flight, the aircraft that operated VA690 was the iconic VH-REX, which left Virgin to fly capital city routes for Rex before returning to Virgin when Rex suspended 737 service last year. On the day after, it was VH-YID, ex-Virgin Samoa. But no such interesting plane for me.
It was meant to be VH-YFT, but something happened to it and it had to get replaced by VH-YIW, which was scheduled to come in from Kununurra a bit too late to make the flight on time (the pilot also mentioned some of this on the flight to explain the delay).
So by the time security was cleared - it didn't take much time, no line and nothing had to be taken out of the bags - there was a bit of a wait until the flight. Perth isn't the fanciest of airports, just a few shops and cafes, but it's still nice and more importantly it's easy to watch the planes… at least the domestic ones, not quite as easy to see the international ones down at the other end of the terminal, at this time a Singapore Airlines A350-900 and one of two South African Airways' A340-300s.

By the way, this flight was exactly 1 year to the day after the date of the flight in my first FR, which was a South African Airways A340 (the other one) from Johannesburg to Perth.
Anyway, on the domestic side there was a Virgin Australia Regional Airlines Fokker 100, a Jetstar A321neo, a regular Virgin 737-800 and some Alliance and Rex Fokkers and Saabs.

Departures this afternoon, all Virgin in T1. 

Qantas A330-200 taking off in the distance.

VA Regional Airlines F100.

And here comes our plane, VH-YIW, a 10.7 year old 737-800 named Mona Vale Beach. Unlike my last 10 flights or so I could actually get some pictures of it!

It was getting pretty clear that the delay would be longer than expected, scheduled boarding time came and went before the inbound flight even started deboarding its passengers, but the departures board rather stubbornly maintained that there would be a delay of only 1 minute (it had gone down from 10).
Turns out you can also see the international planes. That's Batik Air with its tail poking out.

On the domestic side, Alliance coming in.

And the SQ A350 is off to Singapore.

Boarding started around schedule departure time. There were two lines converging into one so it was a bit of a mess.

Fuselage.

And here's my seat.

There were some crumbs on the seat, I don't think they cleaned it very thoroughly.

There were two seatback pockets.

Personal lights and air vents.

Unlike my last Virgin 737-800 flight there were charging ports on this plane, two pairs for a row of three seats. The ones on my side didn't actually work, though I tried the ones on the other side of my row when getting off the plane and they did.

The headrest was fully adjustable and pretty comfortable.

That's a Rex Saab 340 coming in.

People sitting in behind row 15 had to board from stairs in the back.

The seatback pocket had a safety card…

…and a menu

Prices are ridiculously high.

And as I only noticed later, a sickness bag.

The seatback pocket wasn't in great condition.

After some announcements (including the pilot cheerfully saying, "It's been a great week in Melbourne, really nice weather. However that's all about the chance around the time we get there") we pushed back, passing the VARA F100 and Jetstar A321neo.

And a bit of a more rare sight, National Jet Express (flying for Rex).

We passed the Qantas area, including the 787-9 VH-ZND, painted in the Yam Dreaming special livery.

Slightly better view of the SAA A340, which sits on the ground in Perth all afternoon and leaves at night.

Another Singapore Airlines A350 has arrived (along with a Malaysia Airlines 737-800). Singapore is actually a bigger international player than Qantas in Perth.

And we're off, around 40 minutes late.

Purple lighting got turned on and stayed for most of the flight.

I missed the first water service since I was in the bathroom (there were lots of people waiting there throughought the flight and I also couldn't get a proper cabin picture because of this).
Virgin has streaming entertainment available on 737-800 and -8 flights. Wi-fi is also available for purchase.

Selection was decent for a short flight and it felt better than Qatar's.
The main service started soon after takeoff, there is free tea, coffee and water. I just got water.

It was slightly chilled, so perfect temperature really.
It wasn't long until another beverage run, Virgin is usually very good with frequent service on most flights.

Flying over the Great Australian Bight. It might look like the fastest route between Perth and Melbourne is right across the desert, but a straight route is actually going south over the water and the tip of South Australia.

The sun began setting a couple of hours into the flight.

Some more water. For some reason after the first two hours there wasn't any more service, but at least it was frequent earlier on.

The sun set pretty quickly.

Around three hours after departure we passed Adelaide. This is the closest city of over 100,000 people to Perth and it's a three hour flight - Perth is very, very isolated!

The rest of the flight was uneventful. The IFE was a little patchy and movies froze for a few seconds every few minutes.
Lighting was changed a couple of times as we got closer to Melbourne.

The first lights from Melbourne suburbs in the distance.

Welcome to Victoria!

Unlike Perth, there were lots of international airlines present. These included Emirates, Singapore Airlines, China Airlines and Sichuan Airlines.

We parked next to some fellow VA 737s.

The colored lights were turned off. 

Passengers who didn't want to deplane from the back were asked to stay seated but no one really listened.

The business cabin looks rather underwhelming.

Arrivals are mostly from the same few cities.

Bags took a little while to arrive, there were three Sydney flights on the same belt.

I'll end this one here, soon it'll be time for a more interesting trip, Fiji Airways to Samoa. Thanks for reading.