Virgin Australia: Perth and Gold Coast lounges open from 12 January 2021 [UPDATED]

The Gold Coast and Perth lounges will join Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney offering re-opened Virgin Australia lounges. Adelaide and Canberra are scheduled to re-open in the next few months according to ET. The Adelaide lounge is new, and was previously scheduled to open back in April 2020, pre-COVID-19.

The re-opening of the Perth lounge is slightly surprising given the stop and start nature of Western Australia’s closed borders isolating it from the rest of the country. They sure are different in the West!

Closed Lounges

Virgin has already axed lounges in Alice Springs, Cairns, Darwin, Mackay, Perth (T2), and New Zealand’s Wellington facilities. ‘The Club’ invitation only lounges also remain shuttered, and still no word if they will keep these rivals to the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge at all.

Opening Hours

Opening hours for the lounges are as follows:

Gold Coast

Located adjacent to gates 1 and 2
8 am – 8 pm Monday to Friday 
8 am – 6 pm Saturday 
8 am – 8 pm Sunday

Perth

Located on the left-hand side after the T1 security screening point
4.15 am – 5 pm Monday to Friday 
5 am – 12 pm Saturday 
5 am – 5 pm Sunday

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

These openings are welcome, and should aid Virgin’s competitive ‘mid-market’ fight with Qantas, and the soon to be launched REX domestic operations.

I’ve not been a fan of Virgin’s lounges in the past, but I’ll try them again using my 3 months of Gold Status granted in Virgin’s most recent status match promotion. If I gain 100 status credits in that time, I could have Gold Status for another 12 months.

Remember that service in airline lounges for all domestic airlines has been affected by COVID-19 protocols. What you experienced a few months ago, might be different from what you get now as services adapt to the pandemic.