Let's step into a time machine for a moment and go back to, say, 1975. There were three main airlines in Australia then, plus many smaller regional players. Qantas was the government owned national flag carrier, which was limited to overseas operations only. Its government owned sibling TAA (Trans Australia Airlines) handled domestic routes. They had one large privately owned competitor called Ansett, which was named after its founder Reg Ansett (1909-1981).

Move forward to 1986. TAA was renamed Australian Airlines and given a funky new livery. Hop in the time machine again and go to 1992; TAA is merged with Qantas. The following year Qantas started to be privatised, a process which was completed in 1997.

2001. You know what happened in September 2001. It was also the straw that broke the Ansett camel's back, which had already been under strain from competition from Qantas and a couple of startup airlines, as well as from partial fleet groundings. By then the airline was wholly owned by Air New Zealand, itself in financial difficulty. The NZ government was prepared to rescue Air NZ, but not Ansett. On 12 September Air NZ placed Ansett in voluntary administration. Part of the company did return to operations for a time but it was a dead company walking. As happened with the extinction of the dinosaurs this allowed new, more nimble life forms to emerge. Mammals 65 million years ago, Virgin Blue (as it then was) in 2001.

Virgin Blue was originally planned to be a low cost, "fun" airline, hence the use of red painted planes for an airline named "Blue". (Australians call redheads "bluey", because, um, why wouldn't you? Don't worry, it's an Australian thing.) However over the course of the 2000s it was realised that there was an Ansett-shaped hole in the full service airline market, so after the previous CEO retired and a new one who had aspirations for that market came in, the "Blue" name was dropped along with the zany and whacky aircraft names, the image was scrubbed up to be a bit more professional, and the name changed to Virgin Airlines around the start of the 2010s.

Things seemed to be going well. There were even some international services.

Then Covid happened.

Some airlines got more support than others (see image 0305 below). Virgin, not so much. On 21 April 2020, VA went into voluntary administration, and in June it was acquired by venture capitalists Bain Capital. In October the CEO "resigned" to be replaced by... something else. And now VA is being tarted up to be refloated on the market and I'm sure I'll be first in line for the prospectus.

Not.

May the gods help those gullible... sorry, I mean "adventurous" enough to sign up for that one. I'm a Qantas shareholder not because it's a good investment - airlines never are - but because I wanted to own some Really Big Planes. One airline in my portfolio is one too many for my brain, just the right number for my heart. Unfortunately it's Qantas, though...

Anyway, this is the second go around with Virgin Australia for the registration VH-VUP, a Boeing 737-800 (737-8FE(WL) variant). It was originally called the "Holly Hunter", and was delivered in June 2008.

The following month it was transferred to Pacific Blue Airlines under the New Zealand registration ZK-PBK, and given the name Maiden New Zealand. In December 2011 it was transferred back to Virgin Australia, retaining its New Zealand registration but being renamed Lighthouse Beach after a beach near Port Macquarie on the NSW north coast. In March 2015 it resumed its previous registration as VH-VUP.

According to FlightAware this should be VA806 departing the gate at 06:50, and bound for Melbourne Tullamarine with a scheduled (and actual) arrival time of 08:25.

Yes, it was on time. After all, this is not a Jetstar flight.