Virgin Australia (VA, Brisbane International) has announced that it will defer delivery of its first of forty B737 MAX until the final quarter of the 2019 calendar year.
The carrier said in a 1H2016/17 Financial Year earnings report the move would shift over AUD350 million dollars (USD268 million) of expenditure associated with the Group's B737 MAX program, to beyond its 2018/19 Financial Year. As such, it added that in order to ensure continued adequate capacity support, lease agreements on "some" B737NextGen aircraft in service with the carrier may be extended.
On the placement of the original order in 2012, Virgin Australia planned to take delivery of twenty-three B737 MAX from Boeing (BOE, Washington National) between 2019 and 2021. However, in August 2014, it accelerated the date of delivery of its maiden machine of the type to 2018.
According to the Boeing Orders & Deliveries site, Virgin America still has four of seventy-three B737-800s left on order.
Virgin Australia's mainline fleet currently entails six A330-200s, fourteen ATR72-500/600s, two B737-700s, fifty-eight B737-800s, and thirteen E190s. The remaining Embraer Regional Jets are to be removed from service by the end of this current calendar year. A buyer has already been found for its six remaining owned airframes of the type.
