Virgin Australia announced on Wednesday it would provide additional capacity over the coming months to meet market requirements and to minimize the impact of ongoing Qantas industrial action on the Australian travel and tourism industry.

“Over the last three months, we have increased our capacity around Australia, adding more than 31,000 seats each week including expanding our presence in the very important Perth market where we have introduced wide body aircraft and Business Class seats,” said Virgin Australia group of airlines CEO John Borghetti.

“We have added more than 6,800 seats to Perth (we have 31,000 seats to Perth every week, with the Business Class product available on board all flights from the East Coast). We are very committed to this market and believe we have the capacity to support increased demand.

In addition to this, the airline has already put plans in place to add extra capacity over the next few weeks, including 3,000 additional seats each week up to 30 October; and the addition of a fifth daily return service from Melbourne to Perth commencing 20 December adding a further 2,300 seats each week.

Mr Borghetti said they are also closely monitoring the Queensland market to ensure they can meet any additional capacity needs as this important tourism market rebuilds after the devastating floods and cyclones.

“We are well advanced in discussions with alliance partners Etihad Airways and Air New Zealand on providing extra capacity from November, leading into the busy December and January holiday period,” he said.

Virgin stressed there will be no change to its pricing strategy during this time.