Virgin Australia’s first E190-E2 to debut next week

Virgin Australia has officially taken delivery of its first Embraer E190-E2, VH-E2A named “Coral Bay”.

The aircraft, Embraer’s 1,900th E-Jet delivered since the family was launched in 2004, is expected to arrive in Australia soon in preparation for the commencement of Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA) revenue flights in Western Australia.

A special inaugural flight of the aircraft is scheduled for Monday September 8, departing from Canberra around 11am and touching down at its new home at Perth around 1:30pm.

After settling into Perth, the modern jets will pull operate both fly-in fly-out (FIFO) charter services to remote mining sites and regular passenger flights to airports including Broome, Darwin, Kalgoorlie, Karratha, Kununurra, Newman, Onslow and Port Hedland.

The first E2 jet is expected to begin flying FIFO services in late October, followed by scheduled passenger flights from mid-November.

“We are incredibly excited by the introduction of the Embraer 190-E2s to the Virgin Australia Regional Airlines fleet,” said VARA group executive Nick Rohrlach.

The aircraft has been leased from global lessor Azorra, with another three to be delivered this year and into 2026. Virgin has a firm order for eight E190-E2s.

“Welcoming Virgin Australia as a new customer marks a proud milestone for our team as we deliver the first E2 to be operated by a major airline group in Australia and expand our presence in Oceania,” said John Evans, CEO and founder of Azorra.

The new aircraft are outfitted with 8 business class seats and 92 seats in economy.

The business class seats are, for the most part, the same as the airlines’ latest 737 MAX 8s and 737-800s. The business seats are set out in a 2-1 layout, meaning some business passengers may be without any seat neighbour.

Economy is laid out in a 2-2 configuration, removing the dread of being stuck in the middle seat.

All economy seats have a USB-C power outlet, while flowing throughout the plane is high-speed WiFi – which will be free for business class passengers and Velocity Platinum members in economy, and comes with a price tag for everyone else.