Today Virgin Blue’s new long-haul carrier, V Australia, is due to formally launch operations with an inaugural departure from Sydney bound for Los Angeles.

On board the inaugural flight will be the airline Group’s co-founders, Sir Richard Branson and Brett Godfrey, as well as some special Australian celebrity Guests, including singer Marcia Hines, Getaway presenter Catriona Rowntree and Australian rock band, the Potbelleez.

The historic launch of V Australia flights was made possible following the signing of an open skies agreementconcluded between theFederal Governments of Australia and the United States of America 12 months ago.

V Australia lobbied for permission to operate trans-Pacific flights in order to open up travel between the two countries and provide an innovative, affordable and high quality flying option, in the same way Virgin Blue has done domestically in Australia and Pacific Blue has done on the trans-Tasman and domestically in New Zealand.

V Australia will initially offer thrice-weekly services between Sydney and Los Angeles but will boost the route to daily on 21 March. Thrice-weekly Brisbane-Los Angeles flights are due to join V Australia’s network on 8 April and a thrice-weekly Melbourne-Los Angeles service will follow on 15 September. Five weekly Sydney-Johannesburg flights are next in line and are due for launch in October.

V Australia Boeing 777 ER