With Virgin Atlantic making their intent clear for network changes at Manchester, it’s the turn of its London Heathrow hub to get summer 2020 changes in.
Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350-1000 at London Heathrow – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
So, what’s new?
Firstly is Delhi, which will get a second daily service from 20, 29th March 2020 for the summer. This flight will depart in the morning – complimenting the existing service which operates in the evening. The service to Mumbai will also be retimed as well, to offer three flights a day to India.
San Francisco gains an extra frequency for the summer too, this time operated with an Airbus A350-1000, with one extra flight a week on Fridays from May 2020.
The A350 deployment continues apace, with the airline planning in the aircraft for new destinations.
- Johannesburg from March 2020 with a daily operation
- Los Angeles from April 2020 with a daily operation
- San Francisco from May 2020 with a daily service
- Lagos from August 2020 with a daily service
In quotes
Juha Jarvinen, EVP Commercial at Virgin Atlantic, said:
“As we work to achieve our ambition to become the most loved travel company, we’re pleased to announce extra flights to some of our most popular destinations. Next year will mark twenty years since Virgin Atlantic started flying to Delhi, and the service continues to grow in popularity for both business and leisure travel. The second daily service from Heathrow is an excellent opportunity to meet customer demand on this route and, coupled with our new service to Mumbai, we’re able to offer even more choice and unrivalled Virgin Atlantic service to customers travelling between the UK and India.
“We’re delighted to announce our flying programme for our brand new A350 aircraft, starting from next summer. We’re confident our customers will love to fly on this new aircraft and will enjoy the onboard experience of our newly redesigned cabins.”
Taking the new fleet forward
With the Virgin Atlantic’s A350 fleet spreading its wings, the airline can continue to work on removing the older aircraft and bring forward the new passenger experiences (with the new seats that feature on the Airbus A350 – such as the Cirrus Business Class seats, the Collins Aerospace MiQ seat in Premium Economy and the Recaro CL370 in the Economy Cabin).
With daily service planned to a number of cities, it will up to Airbus to deliver the aircraft in time and Virgin Atlantic to validate them in time for service.
The airline has 12 aircraft to be delivered – replacing older Airbus A340-600 and Boeing 747-400 aircraft as the airline continues transitioning from a four-engined fleet to a two-engined fleet.
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