The new agreement saw Menzies take over Virgin Atlantic’s cargo handling in Melbourne on June 8, with Brisbane to follow on July 9 and Sydney on August 7.
Currently, Virgin Atlantic is responsible for marketing the cargo capacity on Virgin Australia’s daily services from Sydney to Los Angeles, its six weekly services from Brisbane to Los Angeles, and its five weekly services from Melbourne to Los Angeles. In 2017, this was extended to include Virgin Australia’s new Melbourne-Hong Kong services, and increased again at the start of July when the airline launched daily Sydney-Hong Kong services.
Overall, cargo volumes generated by Virgin Atlantic into Australia in the first quarter of 2018 increased over 30%, while revenue from Australia also achieved strong growth.
Tania Boyes, Virgin Atlantic Cargo’s Director of Operations, said: “As we develop our services across Australia, we believe that Menzies Aviation are the right partner to help us achieve our goals in this market and we will continue the high standard of handling services our customers expect from us. We also wish to thank dnata, our handling partner in Australia for the past three years, for their support of our growth over this period."