Virgin adds long haul flights
Increased winter frequencies will give Virgin Atlantic daily services to key long haul destinations.
The London-Mumbai route has seen flights increase from three a week to daily. Six-weekly Shanghai flights will rise to a daily frequency from December 7 followed by daily flights to Cape Town between January 29 and March 25. These are in addition to additional flights added to Las Vegas in the summer.
The airline’s chairman Sir Richard Branson said: “I am delighted that Virgin Atlantic is continuing to increase its frequency on significant business and leisure routes including Mumbai, Shanghai, Cape Town and Las Vegas.
“Shanghai was a landmark route for us as it was the first route Virgin Atlantic had been granted the rights to fly on before British Airways. From day one Las Vegas has been extremely popular with our passengers and we hope to be able to offer a daily service from next year.
“Cape Town has always been one of our most popular destinations and there has been a high demand from both leisure and business travellers to increase our services so we are very happy that we can increase from two to three services per week during the peak winter season and then to daily during February and March.
“Mumbai is one of our newest routes, launched in March this year, thanks to the new liberal bilateral air services agreement we are able now to launch daily services from Heathrow.
“The demand for popular long haul routes continues to rise and Virgin Atlantic is committed to sustain and build upon its growth with further route expansion next year to Dubai, Virgin Atlantic’s first Middle Eastern destination, and Jamaica, the eighth Caribbean island on our route map.”
Report by Phil Davies
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