Virgin Atlantic drops and adds

An announcement from Virgin Atlantic confirming the cessation of services to both Mumbai and Tokyo at the end of January 2015, and the dropping of seasonal routes to Vancouver (on 11 October 2014) and Cape Town (27 April 2015) mark important steps for the Crawley-based airline as it more and more integrates its service with 49% shareholder Delta. Sydney was dropped in May of this year leaving Dubai, Hong Kong and Shanghai the only destinations to the east.

By freeing up the slots it clearly wants to concentrate on more lucrative routes and opportunities.

Building on its existing two-year recovery plan, which is on target to deliver an annual profit by the end of 2014, the airline is now shifting focus onto positioning its business for long term success.  The network review will deliver up to five new daily transatlantic flights.

Virgin plans to introduce a new daily service from Heathrow to Detroit and add extra daily flights from Heathrow to New York JFK and Los Angeles.  Summer 2015 will see the airline adding to its Atlanta, Miami and San Francisco flights, all out of Heathrow.

Virgin will also take over the Delta Atlanta operation at Manchester from June next year.  See also in this issue 'A closure for Little Red?'  www.virgin-atlantic.com

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