Getting customers back into the air is important for airlines – with different airlines trying different strategies. Virgin Atlantic is to offer complimentary COVID-19 global insurance cover for all bookings
Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787-9 at London Heathrow – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
The cover – “Virgin Atlantic COVID-19 Cover” will apply to all existing and new bookings, travelling from 24 August 2020 until 31 March 2021. The insurance policy with Allianz Assistance offers comprehensive cover in the event that a Virgin Atlantic customer or travel companion becomes ill with COVID-19 while on a trip. It applies when travelling on a Virgin Atlantic issued tickets, so if your flight is operated by a partner airline or a Joint Venture carrier – Delta Air Lines or Air France-KLM – the cover will also apply.
It covers:
- 24-hour emergency medical assistance
- £500,000 of emergency medical expenses if you are taken ill due to Coronavirus during your journey, including treatment, transport and accommodation costs
- Additional costs should a customer be denied boarding due to suspected or actual COVID-19, or if they are held in quarantine, including accommodation, transport charges, refreshments, booking amendment fees and other travel expenses – up to £3,000
- Repatriation home, including private air ambulance where necessary
- No excess payable
- Cover for the whole trip, with no upper limit on the length of customer’s time away
- Cover for all passengers with no restrictions on age travel class or length of the journey
- Terms and conditions apply.
The cover starts from the point of booking and ends when the customer returns home or to a hospital or nursing home in their home country. One-way trips are also included, with the insurance cover valid until the end of the journey, which is defined as 12 hours after the arrival of the customer’s final flight.
Full details of the cover can be found at https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/news/coronavirus/free-global-cover-for-covid-19.html.
In quotes
Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer at Virgin Atlantic said:
“Our priority is always the health and safety of our people and customers and this industry-leading Virgin Atlantic COVID-19 Cover ensures customers can continue to fly safe and fly well with us.
“Following our return to the skies to much-loved destinations like Barbados, we’re planning more services in the autumn, as travel restrictions continue to ease, including London Heathrow to Montego Bay, Antigua, Lagos and Tel Aviv. Whether it’s to visit friends and relatives or take a well-deserved break, we believe this complimentary cover will provide some added reassurance for our customers as they start to plan trips further afield. It applies in parallel to existing travel insurance policies which may now exclude COVID-19, and provides comprehensive cover for coronavirus, recognising the needs of our customers as we restart services.”
Following Emirates in trying to lure customers to the air
Emirates was the first to pioneer offering COVID-19 insurance and bundling it with their tickets.
As airlines continue to grapple with getting passengers in the (including Virgin Atlantic, which got it’s £1.2billon new fiance initiative authorised today), part of the issue will be convincing passengers that they can fly and return, with confidence.
That can be in the form of COVID-19 testing pre-flight, wearing masks and offering insurance.
No doubt, others will be watching this – not only the cost of it but also how many cases Virgin Atlantic may have to pay out on…
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