Virgin Atlantic continues its transatlantic expansion with a new route from London Heathrow to Tampa, launching on 3rd November 2022.
Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350-1000 at London Heathrow Airport – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
The new year-round Florida service will initially fly four times a week before increasing to operate daily from 28th November, complementing the airlines’ up to four daily flights to Orlando and double daily flying to Miami.
The planned operation is as follows:
VS129 DEPART LHR 13:25 ARRIVE TPA 18:35 V130 DEPART TPA 20:50 ARRIVE LHR 1015+1 Commences 3rd November 2022. operating four days a week Scales to a daily operation from 28th November Equipment type: Undefined at this moment.
Flights go on sale on 13th July 2022. The airline’s lead-in offers are as follows
- Return Economy fares start from £436 per person
- Premium Economy from £937 per person
- Upper Class from £2,256 per person.
- Virgin Atlantic holidays will also have lead-in offers too.
Virgin Atlantic will be tapping into the connectivity the airline offers, to provide a direct connection from the Tampa Bay region with London’s hub airport, London Heathrow, allowing for onward connections as needed.
In Quotes
Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer at Virgin Atlantic, commented:
“We are delighted to continue our expansion in the US with this new daily service to Tampa, Florida offering even more choice for customers on both sides of the Atlantic to connect between the US and the UK.
“Florida is very much a firm favourite for our customers ever since our first flight to Miami back in 1986. With the popular theme parks and the stunning beaches of St Pete and Clearwater within easy reach, we know it’s an area our customers will love to explore.”
“The region has a booming economy with high profile businesses moving to the area and many budding entrepreneurs registering start ups in the city. We very much look forward to forging new relationships within the Tampa Bay community and cannot wait to welcome customers, both existing and new onboard, flying them safely to explore this exciting region.”
Joe Lopano, Chief Executive Officer at Tampa International Airport, commented:
“We at Tampa International Airport are thrilled to offer our first-ever nonstop route to Heathrow and launch this new partnership with Virgin Atlantic. Not only does this create another Tampa-London option for our leisure travellers, but there’s a huge upside for our thriving business community to now have a direct connection to the world’s premier business airport. We expect this to be a popular route during what we know will be a very busy winter travel season at TPA.”
VISIT FLORIDA President and CEO Dana Young said:
“Expanding flight options and exposure to destinations throughout Florida is vital to maintaining and strengthening the UK’s position as our No. 1 market for overseas visitation,”
“This new Virgin Atlantic service will provide more opportunities for UK travellers to experience the vibrant and growing city of Tampa, which offers a dynamic food scene, sports, arts and culture and much more.”
Fighting BA on a different front.
Interesting words are being used by Virgin Atlantic here. Tampa does have direct connectivity to London with British Airways. The endpoint is different, with London Gatwick being the destination of BA.
It seems that Virgin Atlantic is preparing to deliver the network connectivity, with a full scale-up programme to support the route.
It’ll be interesting to see if British Airways responds, or if other players eye the Tampa route. Eurowings Discover and Edelweiss Air are the only other European operators who fly to Tampa.
Could there be room for more operators in the future?
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Given Tampa’s rapid growth, and with a lot of that growth coming at the higher end of the market (at least hotel-wise), I’d wondered if Virgin w0uld consider coming to Tampa, especially since BA insists on keeping us at Gatwick when they serve all the other Florida markets (except for extra seasonal service to Orlando) out of LHR.
I suspect that one side-effect of this is that restart of our pre-pandemic service on DL to AMS will be pushed back even further (if not scrapped outright.) But it’s great news…I’m hoping for Aer Lingus next!