Exclusive: Virgin fills more than 700 737s with Rex passengers

This is the first time group boarding has been used by an Australian domestic carrier, and follows a “series of successful trials” in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, which Qantas says demonstrated a positive effect on on-time performance.

The regular JQ471 service on Saturday, 25 May, operated by the A320-200 VH-VFQ, had several of the pilots, cabin crew and customers on board from the maiden flight on the same day in 2004, with the crew also wearing Jetstar’s new uniform designed to ma…