Arion640 wrote:

seat1a wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

They flew it for years via HKG.

Was thinking if they would do it nonstop.

More chance of LHR-PER

I did the NYC/Lon/HKG/SYD on VS a couple of times. I was wiped out by the time I got to SYD.

This was a cool video seeing Virgin Atlantic's design team talked about the new neo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaRoYIv1Nbk

Virgin Atlantic is rumoured to launch LHR - BLR flights(& maybe more). Announcement in the coming week or two.

Hoping someone can help me out on the status of Upper Class in the 333/339 fleet. I'm flying across the pond next month on a 333, but the seat map appears to be the newer Upper Class that is on the 339. I had thought that the 333s were still in the diagonal rows. Are they overhauling the 333s as well?

Nevermind - the plane type on DL said 333, but when I checked on VA site, it's actually a 339.

sand26391 wrote:

Virgin Atlantic is rumoured to launch LHR - BLR flights(& maybe more). Announcement in the coming week or two.

Where's the source showing this evidence?

Philippine333 wrote:

sand26391 wrote:

Virgin Atlantic is rumoured to launch LHR - BLR flights(& maybe more). Announcement in the coming week or two.

Where's the source showing this evidence?

Is this the source?
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1651635036960038917

blrBird wrote:

Philippine333 wrote:

sand26391 wrote:

Virgin Atlantic is rumoured to launch LHR - BLR flights(& maybe more). Announcement in the coming week or two.

Where's the source showing this evidence?

Is this the source?
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1651635036960038917

Just a lot of ground based communication which is my source, no article source unfortunately.

Magnum9 wrote:

AEROFAN wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Singapore, Toronto, Chicago, Dallas, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Houston, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur and Phoenix are some of the routes I can think of that VS might have been considering (re-)starting

Chicago and Toronto again? How many times trying would that be? Four? Five? I wish them look on their new operations.

Neither Toronto or Chicago again. Of that list I’d say if anything São Paulo first to take advantage of LA’s closely developing relationship with SkyTeam, Delta specifically. Other than that Tokyo or possibly Dubai.

Out of these I think Toronto and Chicago could world and they are definitely the locations Virgin should be looking at if they really believe they are a competitor to BA. I think they should order some A321XLRs ASAP as this is ideal for this type of situation. They could also use them to develop routes out of MAN as their current frames are too big for many of the routes they need to enter if they want to grow.

I think Bangkok is a no brainier as BA no longer wants to serve but I understand both airports are over capacity and the government there probably doesn’t want to see another competitor to Thai Airways. Another option there is U Tapao Pattaya which is close enough to be seen as potential entry point for Bangkok. As a holiday airline Virgin may well be able to sell beach holidays there at the end of the day it’s a very popular holiday resort.

I think there is a heap of demand in Singapore but there is probably a bit of an under the counter deal with SQ there as code share partner.

Dubai has got no chance as Emirates has that one sown up. IMO.

I don’t think the other ones would work TBH.

VS results for 2022 are out - revenue almost fully recovered but losses of £206M. Expect profitability in 2024...

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerosp ... 023-05-10/

Out of curiosity on average how many flights a day does VS have out of LHR? Do they use all their slots up

smi0006 wrote:

Out of curiosity on average how many flights a day does VS have out of LHR? Do they use all their slots up

something around 30 to 34 departures per day including a couple of inter European so called freight services to Brussels Dublin or Billund ( better known as slot sitters)

Just noticed Virgin Atlantic schedule out of IAD this summer is a bit strange, with the arrival from LHR at 10:30pm, but the departure from IAD being at 6pm. Having a plane on the ground for almost 20 hours doesn't seem to be the best use of aircraft utilization

I spoke to a contact of mine at Virgin Atlantic today and I got a couple of interesting nuggets of information.

Apparently the Skyteam integration was a total flop and FFers can't book award tickets on any airline other than China Eastern because their computer systems weren;t set up correctly, I think this is a major gaffe by Virgin as this absolutely needed to be up and running when they made the announcement. TBH I think they should make it public as like a lot of people I tried to book these on the website and couldn't find them. This totally devalues the proposition of Skyteam membership but I understand that they hope to be offering these flights towards the end of the calender year.

Another thing I learned is that Virgin are struggling for lift, particularly on the longer routes because they let too many 787s go back to lessors during Covid. I think this is why they are struggling to find new routes outside the economic range of the A330 and it might be a factor in them not serving Hong Kong anymore which was always a really profitable route.

3AWM wrote:

I spoke to a contact of mine at Virgin Atlantic today and I got a couple of interesting nuggets of information.

Apparently the Skyteam integration was a total flop and FFers can't book award tickets on any airline other than China Eastern because their computer systems weren;t set up correctly, I think this is a major gaffe by Virgin as this absolutely needed to be up and running when they made the announcement. TBH I think they should make it public as like a lot of people I tried to book these on the website and couldn't find them. This totally devalues the proposition of Skyteam membership but I understand that they hope to be offering these flights towards the end of the calender year.

Another thing I learned is that Virgin are struggling for lift, particularly on the longer routes because they let too many 787s go back to lessors during Covid. I think this is why they are struggling to find new routes outside the economic range of the A330 and it might be a factor in them not serving Hong Kong anymore which was always a really profitable route.

What 787s did they give up? I’m not seeing any.

Before the pandemic, VS would fly daily between GRU and LHR with B789, maybe can return the plans?

ikolkyo wrote:

3AWM wrote:

I spoke to a contact of mine at Virgin Atlantic today and I got a couple of interesting nuggets of information.

Apparently the Skyteam integration was a total flop and FFers can't book award tickets on any airline other than China Eastern because their computer systems weren;t set up correctly, I think this is a major gaffe by Virgin as this absolutely needed to be up and running when they made the announcement. TBH I think they should make it public as like a lot of people I tried to book these on the website and couldn't find them. This totally devalues the proposition of Skyteam membership but I understand that they hope to be offering these flights towards the end of the calender year.

Another thing I learned is that Virgin are struggling for lift, particularly on the longer routes because they let too many 787s go back to lessors during Covid. I think this is why they are struggling to find new routes outside the economic range of the A330 and it might be a factor in them not serving Hong Kong anymore which was always a really profitable route.

What 787s did they give up? I’m not seeing any.

To be honest I haven;t seen anything about this in the press either but Virgin are very good at PR.

I'm also finding that a lot of the online sources I used to look at for this kind of stuff are not up to date following Covid. For example many airport Wikipedia pages no longer show the correct flight connections and actually it's quite a bit more difficult now to determine which services exist between airports.

3AWM wrote:

ikolkyo wrote:

3AWM wrote:

I spoke to a contact of mine at Virgin Atlantic today and I got a couple of interesting nuggets of information.

Apparently the Skyteam integration was a total flop and FFers can't book award tickets on any airline other than China Eastern because their computer systems weren;t set up correctly, I think this is a major gaffe by Virgin as this absolutely needed to be up and running when they made the announcement. TBH I think they should make it public as like a lot of people I tried to book these on the website and couldn't find them. This totally devalues the proposition of Skyteam membership but I understand that they hope to be offering these flights towards the end of the calender year.

Another thing I learned is that Virgin are struggling for lift, particularly on the longer routes because they let too many 787s go back to lessors during Covid. I think this is why they are struggling to find new routes outside the economic range of the A330 and it might be a factor in them not serving Hong Kong anymore which was always a really profitable route.

What 787s did they give up? I’m not seeing any.

To be honest I haven;t seen anything about this in the press either but Virgin are very good at PR.

I'm also finding that a lot of the online sources I used to look at for this kind of stuff are not up to date following Covid. For example many airport Wikipedia pages no longer show the correct flight connections and actually it's quite a bit more difficult now to determine which services exist between airports.

Virgin Atlantic ever have had 17 B787-9, and a quick look at the Planespotters website (https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Virgin-Atlantic) will tell you, every single one of them are currently still flying for Virgin.

However, due to Covid, they did sell and lease back a few B787-9, but all of them are still flying for Virgin. I think you may got confused about these financial arrangements rather than actual fleet change.

Load factor on some routes are not as high as what Virgin wanted at the moment, but we definitely don't want to see the chaos happened last summer to repeat again. Giving time, especially with new planes and new routes been introduced, and hopefully positive impact from joining SkyTeam, they should turn to profit in 2024.

3AWM wrote:

I spoke to a contact of mine at Virgin Atlantic today and I got a couple of interesting nuggets of information.

Apparently the Skyteam integration was a total flop and FFers can't book award tickets on any airline other than China Eastern because their computer systems weren;t set up correctly, I think this is a major gaffe by Virgin as this absolutely needed to be up and running when they made the announcement. TBH I think they should make it public as like a lot of people I tried to book these on the website and couldn't find them. This totally devalues the proposition of Skyteam membership but I understand that they hope to be offering these flights towards the end of the calender year.

Another thing I learned is that Virgin are struggling for lift, particularly on the longer routes because they let too many 787s go back to lessors during Covid. I think this is why they are struggling to find new routes outside the economic range of the A330 and it might be a factor in them not serving Hong Kong anymore which was always a really profitable route.

Not true. No B789s were returned and all are currently in service. Furthermore, they’ve added 2 A350 and 4 A330-900 (which are perfectly capable of 12h+ flights)

fff wrote:

3AWM wrote:

ikolkyo wrote:

What 787s did they give up? I’m not seeing any.

To be honest I haven;t seen anything about this in the press either but Virgin are very good at PR.

I'm also finding that a lot of the online sources I used to look at for this kind of stuff are not up to date following Covid. For example many airport Wikipedia pages no longer show the correct flight connections and actually it's quite a bit more difficult now to determine which services exist between airports.

Virgin Atlantic ever have had 17 B787-9, and a quick look at the Planespotters website (https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Virgin-Atlantic) will tell you, every single one of them are currently still flying for Virgin.

However, due to Covid, they did sell and lease back a few B787-9, but all of them are still flying for Virgin. I think you may got confused about these financial arrangements rather than actual fleet change.

Load factor on some routes are not as high as what Virgin wanted at the moment, but we definitely don't want to see the chaos happened last summer to repeat again. Giving time, especially with new planes and new routes been introduced, and hopefully positive impact from joining SkyTeam, they should turn to profit in 2024.

I actually got this from a Virgin employee and I was surprised at the time but VS did do a very nice spin on their fleet reduction programme during Covid.

In fact I think the restructuring VS did was pretty smart and dynamic. SRB took a lot of flack in the press but VS didn't actually get a penny of state aid but many European airlines got billions which totally contravenes European Law but you don't see that talked about all that much in the press.

I think they are missing out now though as there has been a massive contraction in the number of seats available out of LHR and people want to travel more than ever.

Another factor that people don't mention is as an airline that is heavily focussed on London and the US they may be hit more than other airlines by visa delays at the US Border Protection Agency which is forcasting delays of 6-9 months processing visas but it might be longer. This doesn't give passengers a lot of confidence when booking transatlantic flights. The ESTA doesn't help everybody because the US Gov has expanded the number of reasons a face to face interview is required to get a Visa such as exluding people who have been to Cuba, North Korea and Iraq. You might think this doesn't affect many people but the people who are travelling to North Korea and Iraq are definately freequent travellers as no one picks these locations as their first overseas holiday.

London is an international business city and there are many people who live an work at European HQs there who aren't UK nationals and these are also the people who don't necessarilty qualify for the ESTA either. The US, in particular, but not exclusively Miami as a transit point for many travellers to South America and the Caribbean but due to a `quirk` of the US immigration system these passengers actually need to get a USA visa and enter the USA before they can transit anywhere else.

In addition the US has a massive backlog of unprocessed passport renewals, 3 million and growing. Just last week I saw the article below advising US citizens to refrain from booking any overseas travel until they had their passport in their hand.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/book-overseas ... d=99074795

Due to the partnership with Delta I think as lot of the strategic thinkers at Virgin are trying too hard to get US numbers up when in fact right now there is much more demand for South East Asian flights. Although these places initially took quite draconian measures to combat COVID they are now full open. Even Hong Kong is now fully open now. Places like Thailand and Singapore value tourism and business travel and at the end of the day they have pulled out all of the stops to get PAX coming again but unfortunately in the UK and in the US inefficient Government departments are crippling the private sector and there doesn't really seem to be anything we can do about it.

Any more rumours about VS starting ICN floating about ? Or are they waiting for the KE/OZ merger first ?

3AWM wrote:

fff wrote:

3AWM wrote:

To be honest I haven;t seen anything about this in the press either but Virgin are very good at PR.

I'm also finding that a lot of the online sources I used to look at for this kind of stuff are not up to date following Covid. For example many airport Wikipedia pages no longer show the correct flight connections and actually it's quite a bit more difficult now to determine which services exist between airports.

Virgin Atlantic ever have had 17 B787-9, and a quick look at the Planespotters website (https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Virgin-Atlantic) will tell you, every single one of them are currently still flying for Virgin.

However, due to Covid, they did sell and lease back a few B787-9, but all of them are still flying for Virgin. I think you may got confused about these financial arrangements rather than actual fleet change.

Load factor on some routes are not as high as what Virgin wanted at the moment, but we definitely don't want to see the chaos happened last summer to repeat again. Giving time, especially with new planes and new routes been introduced, and hopefully positive impact from joining SkyTeam, they should turn to profit in 2024.

I actually got this from a Virgin employee and I was surprised at the time but VS did do a very nice spin on their fleet reduction programme during Covid.

In fact I think the restructuring VS did was pretty smart and dynamic. SRB took a lot of flack in the press but VS didn't actually get a penny of state aid but many European airlines got billions which totally contravenes European Law but you don't see that talked about all that much in the press.

I think they are missing out now though as there has been a massive contraction in the number of seats available out of LHR and people want to travel more than ever.

Another factor that people don't mention is as an airline that is heavily focussed on London and the US they may be hit more than other airlines by visa delays at the US Border Protection Agency which is forcasting delays of 6-9 months processing visas but it might be longer. This doesn't give passengers a lot of confidence when booking transatlantic flights. The ESTA doesn't help everybody because the US Gov has expanded the number of reasons a face to face interview is required to get a Visa such as exluding people who have been to Cuba, North Korea and Iraq. You might think this doesn't affect many people but the people who are travelling to North Korea and Iraq are definately freequent travellers as no one picks these locations as their first overseas holiday.

London is an international business city and there are many people who live an work at European HQs there who aren't UK nationals and these are also the people who don't necessarilty qualify for the ESTA either. The US, in particular, but not exclusively Miami as a transit point for many travellers to South America and the Caribbean but due to a `quirk` of the US immigration system these passengers actually need to get a USA visa and enter the USA before they can transit anywhere else.

In addition the US has a massive backlog of unprocessed passport renewals, 3 million and growing. Just last week I saw the article below advising US citizens to refrain from booking any overseas travel until they had their passport in their hand.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/book-overseas ... d=99074795

Due to the partnership with Delta I think as lot of the strategic thinkers at Virgin are trying too hard to get US numbers up when in fact right now there is much more demand for South East Asian flights. Although these places initially took quite draconian measures to combat COVID they are now full open. Even Hong Kong is now fully open now. Places like Thailand and Singapore value tourism and business travel and at the end of the day they have pulled out all of the stops to get PAX coming again but unfortunately in the UK and in the US inefficient Government departments are crippling the private sector and there doesn't really seem to be anything we can do about it.

Singapore would be expensive to operate and have stiff competition. You need two frames to operate the 14 hour flight. And you’re competing against multiple SQ, two BA and a QF flight.

They could make Bangkok work. Bucket and spade destination, but low yield.

If Virgin needs lift short-term, they can just extend the leases on the A330-300s right? That should give them a nice net increase as the A330-900s and A350-1000s continue to come into the fleet.

I think they can use A330-300s on the Eastern Seaboard US and places like India but whatever the specifics there seems to me to be less 787s on business routes than there were before. I think the A330-300 is OK for routes 8 hours and below but it's not so economically viable on the longer routes which is maybe why Virgin are steering clear of longer ourtes in SE Asia and why they have cancelled Hong Kong.

This is interesting…
G-VBOB, the latest A35K which was only delivered on 24 May, suddenly entered service yesterday as VS 41/42 to/from SFO! She was only 2 days in induction and interestingly she has the leisure 16J UC cabin vs the normal 44J config as used on the long haul flights! That’s a 28 seat difference in UC seats! I can only imagine the disappointment and frustration for the 28 people who would have been downgraded assuming the UC was booked full as is fairly normal at this time of year.

audidudi wrote:

This is interesting…
G-VBOB, the latest A35K which was only delivered on 24 May, suddenly entered service yesterday as VS 41/42 to/from SFO! She was only 2 days in induction and interestingly she has the leisure 16J UC cabin vs the normal 44J config as used on the long haul flights! That’s a 28 seat difference in UC seats! I can only imagine the disappointment and frustration for the 28 people who would have been downgraded assuming the UC was booked full as is fairly normal at this time of year.

Galileo is showing plenty of availability in all classes including Upper for today's LHR-SFO, both ways. So I doubt yesterday's flight had high UC loads.

iadadd wrote:

Just noticed Virgin Atlantic schedule out of IAD this summer is a bit strange, with the arrival from LHR at 10:30pm, but the departure from IAD being at 6pm. Having a plane on the ground for almost 20 hours doesn't seem to be the best use of aircraft utilization

Agree. Very strange to be on the ground for 20 hours when flying time is only approximately 7 hours.
Does a late night departure from IAD not work?

TC957 wrote:

audidudi wrote:

This is interesting…
G-VBOB, the latest A35K which was only delivered on 24 May, suddenly entered service yesterday as VS 41/42 to/from SFO! She was only 2 days in induction and interestingly she has the leisure 16J UC cabin vs the normal 44J config as used on the long haul flights! That’s a 28 seat difference in UC seats! I can only imagine the disappointment and frustration for the 28 people who would have been downgraded assuming the UC was booked full as is fairly normal at this time of year.

Galileo is showing plenty of availability in all classes including Upper for today's LHR-SFO, both ways. So I doubt yesterday's flight had high UC loads.

I flew SFO->LHR on 24 May and UC was completely full…I’m also flying LHR->SFO on 1 June which is showing 19 seats available, so it entirely depends on which day(s) you’re looking at. Regardless, sending an aircraft with only 16 UC seats at this time of year as a last minute substitution would have caused a lot of downgrades.

DTWLAX wrote:

iadadd wrote:

Just noticed Virgin Atlantic schedule out of IAD this summer is a bit strange, with the arrival from LHR at 10:30pm, but the departure from IAD being at 6pm. Having a plane on the ground for almost 20 hours doesn't seem to be the best use of aircraft utilization

Agree. Very strange to be on the ground for 20 hours when flying time is only approximately 7 hours.
Does a late night departure from IAD not work?

Nothing preventing a late night departure from Dulles, but the issue is likely LHR slots. VS traditionally had an afternoon arrival followed by an evening departure from IAD. This is a new schedule for them

3AWM....VS took delivery of 17 B789's and all 17 are operating. None have left the fleet. Sure, there was likely some sale and leaseback agreements going on, but the fleet was always 17 strong and still is. Think you may need a better source at VS for your information !

Virgin today are going to announce the return of Manchester to Las Vegas, a route last served in 2020.

They’d planned daily flights for Summer 2020 following the demise of Thomas Cook, IIRC they served it 3 or 4 times a week beforehand.

MAN-LAS has always traditionally done rather well and it is nice to see Virgin start to rebuild its Manchester hub

Hearing rumours of dubai being launched late this year

timedoko wrote:

Virgin today are going to announce the return of Manchester to Las Vegas, a route last served in 2020.

They’d planned daily flights for Summer 2020 following the demise of Thomas Cook, IIRC they served it 3 or 4 times a week beforehand.

MAN-LAS has always traditionally done rather well and it is nice to see Virgin start to rebuild its Manchester hub

Indeed! Very nice to see them announce something from Manchester - 3x Weekly MAN-LAS from June 2024 just confirmed. A350 used.

S19 saw 4x weekly A332 on this route (VS85 - Mon, Thu, Sat, Sun).

VS announces a LHR - DXB return, 4 a week with B789 from 28 Oct. MAN - LAS will be 3 a week with A350 from 2 June ' 24.

LHR - DXB is a winter seasonal service; assume it'll do OK with their Holidays business to help fill the planes, otherwise a 4x weekly seasonal service doesn't really stack up against EK and BA...

VS are also going to be selling BGI - GND and BGI - SVD as standalone flights (currently you can only book LHR - BGI or LHR - SVD/GND).

https://corporate.virginatlantic.com/gb ... Dubai.html

Routes come, they go with VS. In a years time will be different again…

by738 wrote:

Routes come, they go with VS. In a years time will be different again…

Well, I see that as a good positive thing. Fly to where there's demand and thus money to be made, don't when forward booking show likely poor returns.

Do VA need an increase in fleet size - more A339s?

DartHerald wrote:

Do VA need an increase in fleet size - more A339s?

Not too much point without more LHR slots. I could see them expanding some more at MAN, but that’s just maybe 2-5 more planes. Unless they want to go back to LGW, they’re close to maxed out. More A35Ks might make sense, if they want to upgauge a bit.

I believe the A333's lease returns will start happening soon, so more 339's will just replace them.

jbs2886 wrote:

airportgeek wrote:

DartHerald wrote:

Do VA need an increase in fleet size - more A339s?

Not too much point without more LHR slots. I could see them expanding some more at MAN, but that’s just maybe 2-5 more planes. Unless they want to go back to LGW, they’re close to maxed out. More A35Ks might make sense, if they want to upgauge a bit.

VS reduced their A339 order by at least 1, maybe 2?

The original order was up to 20, with 14 firm orders split 8 direct from Airbus and 6 from ALC. There were 6 additional options. Virgin exercised 2 options July 2022. They still have 4 options remaining. There hasn't been any reduction as far as I know. If they need more planes, the easiest option would be to firm up the remaining 4 options assuming they're still active.

airportgeek wrote:

jbs2886 wrote:

airportgeek wrote:

Not too much point without more LHR slots. I could see them expanding some more at MAN, but that’s just maybe 2-5 more planes. Unless they want to go back to LGW, they’re close to maxed out. More A35Ks might make sense, if they want to upgauge a bit.

VS reduced their A339 order by at least 1, maybe 2?

The original order was up to 20, with 14 firm orders split 8 direct from Airbus and 6 from ALC. There were 6 additional options. Virgin exercised 2 options July 2022. They still have 4 options remaining. There hasn't been any reduction as far as I know. If they need more planes, the easiest option would be to firm up the remaining 4 options assuming they're still active.

VS quietly cancelled cancelled 3 A339 over last year. They started January 2022 with 8 A339s on direct order, they ended 2022 with 5 on direct order. I believe one of them was taken over by DL. 2 might have been taken over by leasing companies but not sure (net change in number of A339s on leasing order was +12, with 10 of those ordered that year for MH).

Polot wrote:

VS quietly cancelled cancelled 3 A339 over last year. They started January 2022 with 8 A339s on direct order, they ended 2022 with 5 on direct order. I believe one of them was taken over by DL. 2 might have been taken over by leasing companies but not sure (net change in number of A339s on leasing order was +12, with 10 of those ordered that year for MH).

I see, thanks for the info. I guess the options exercised last year may have been on A339s from leasing companies. So would that be net -1 last year considering the options exercised?

TC957 wrote:

by738 wrote:

Routes come, they go with VS. In a years time will be different again…

Well, I see that as a good positive thing. Fly to where there's demand and thus money to be made, don't when forward booking show likely poor returns.

Or poorer pre launch market planning? lose money then have to retreat..

timedoko wrote:

Virgin today are going to announce the return of Manchester to Las Vegas, a route last served in 2020.

They’d planned daily flights for Summer 2020 following the demise of Thomas Cook, IIRC they served it 3 or 4 times a week beforehand.

MAN-LAS has always traditionally done rather well and it is nice to see Virgin start to rebuild its Manchester hub

Interesting that VS is launching MAN-LAS and not MAN-LAX. Or did I miss the LAX announcement?
In spite of all the tourist traffic to LAS, I would have thought LAX would have the better yields.

DTWLAX wrote:

Interesting that VS is launching MAN-LAS and not MAN-LAX. Or did I miss the LAX announcement?
In spite of all the tourist traffic to LAS, I would have thought LAX would have the better yields.

Has MAN-LAX been flown before? I think the issue with the route is that it would have to rely heavily on O&D at both LAX and MAN. Something like 4x weekly A339 might work. It's definitely something VS could try out at some point.