Virgin Atlantic has this week launched flights between London Heathrow and Bengaluru, and has announced extra flights for Mumbai.
This represents yet another major investment into India, thanks to the codesharing arrangements with IndiGo.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
New London-Bengaluru Flights: Mumbai Gets A Boost Too…
The flights between London and Bengaluru with Virgin Atlantic launched on April 2.
These flights operate on a daily basis currently, with the airline starting strong on this route.
On top of this, the airline will also be adding a second daily flight to their Mumbai operation in October 2024.
It is understood that the second daily flight with Virgin Atlantic to BOM will remain permanent, with no seasonal aspect indicated.
Juha Jarvinen, the airline Chief Commercial Officer said the following on this:
“There is a huge opportunity for us in India, it has a dynamic, fast-growing economy and we’re anticipating a huge growth in demand for international travel to and from the region.”
“We know both our customers and people love traveling to India and we have a rich history in the destination.”
“Next year marks 25 years of operations and the first time that we’ll offer more than one million seats to India via London Heathrow with optimal connectivity for our US customers from key tech hubs including San Francisco and Seattle.”
“The launch of Bengaluru and doubling of our Mumbai services reaffirms our strong commitment and will allow our customers to travel seamlessly throughout India and beyond, flying on one of the youngest fleets in the skies, with our signature personalized service, delivered by our amazing people.”
India Scheduling Is Vast…
The scheduling for flights into India with Virgin Atlantic is incredibly vast.
Below is the full scheduling, which includes the recently started London-Bengaluru and the planned double-daily Mumbai:
We can see that most of the flights are utilised with their Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft.
However, for the second daily flight from Mumbai, Virgin Atlantic will be utilising their Airbus A350-1000.
By 2025, the airline will have over one million seats on offer into the country, which represents a 350% growth rate since 2019.
Overall…
In conclusion, this is great news for Virgin Atlantic, who are wanting to expand into successful markets as best as possible.
It is clear that this is part of the airline’s strategy to reduce their losses further and turn themselves into a profit for the first time in eight years.
CEO Shai Weiss believes that this year is the year for profitability, and is targeting that accordingly.
For now, let’s see how the new flights perform, as well as whether any additional expansion will happen.
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