Virgin callsign change

Hey all. a heads up.

This will definitely affect any flight tracking here, but starting Effective 28 Oct 12 0000UTC, a new group ICAO code & call-sign will be introduced. Virgin Australia will still use the VOZ ICAO indicator, but the callsign will change from “Virgin” to “Velocity”.

Additionally, any of their affiliate services: Pacific Blue (VBN/“Bluey”), Polynesian Blue (PBN/“BlueBird”), and V Australia (VAU/“Vee Oz”) will all change to use the callsign “Velocity”.

The rationale behind this is that Virgin Australia holdings had an agreement only allowed to use the “Virgin” callsign within Australia, and as that agreement ends and they start to fly more overseas, “Virgin” will not be used. Additionally, they could have to change callsign telephony in en route as they leave Australian airspace. Standardizing on a single callsign eliminates that problem.

NOTAMs were sent out regarding it as well as the note to AirServices Australia about it, but I’m trying to track that down. So you may need to update callsigns here.

BL.

The “callsign” field in our database has been updated to “Velocity” and will take effect in the next day or so.