Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic are deepening their strategic transatlantic partnership with a new West Coast service and both carriers swapping routes.
Delta will begin a four times a week seasonal service from Portland, Oregon to London Heathrow in May 2017, and will add a second Detroit-London Heathrow flight, replacing Virgin Atlantic’s daily service on the route.
Additionally, Delta will add an extra daily Atlanta to London Heathrow flight from May 25, 2017, again replacing one of Virgin’s two daily services.
For Virgin Atlantic’s part, it will replace Delta on the Seattle-London Heathrow and New York JFK- Manchester (UK) routes from March and May 2017 respectively.
"Adding a brand new service to Portland while increasing the scale of Delta’s reach across our Atlanta and Detroit hubs provides a comprehensive network of nonstop and connecting destinations for both Delta and Virgin customers," said Dwight James, Delta’s senior vice president of transatlantic services.
From March 26, 2017, the airlines’ joint summer 2017 schedule comprises 42 peak daily nonstop flights between the US and UK.
In 2015 the transatlantic joint venture carried about 400,000 passengers and on to more than 200 destinations throughout the US.
