UK carrier Virgin Atlantic is restoring flights to Atlanta, Lagos, Tel Aviv and the Indian cities of Delhi and Mumbai this month as the restructuring airline rebuilds its network amid coronavirus.
The services add to its existing network of US destinations – New York JFK, Los Angeles and Miami – as well as Barbados, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The carrier resumed passenger services on 20 July following the coronavirus grounding.
Virgin Atlantic chief commercial officer Juha Jarvinen says: “We’re continually reviewing our network and as countries begin to open up their borders, we’re introducing more and more flying.
“We’re incredibly excited to resume services to Delhi, Tel Aviv, Atlanta, Mumbai and Lagos this September as well as increasing the frequency to other destinations. We’re now offering daily flights to New York JFK and Los Angeles and twice weekly flights to Shanghai.”
Cirium schedules data shows Virgin was operating to 10 US destinations in September 2019. It is still to resume flights to Boston, Las Vegas, Newark, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington Dulles. Virgin shareholder and joint venture partner Delta Air Lines is this month restoring its Boston-Heathrow service.
All the carrier’s London flights will continue to operate from Heathrow, after the airline temporarily halted its Gatwick flights at the start of the pandemic. These flights operate from Terminal 2 due to to consolidation of operations at Heathrow, but Virgin notes that it aims to return to Terminal 3 when demand grows.
The airline has already detailed plans to launch new flights from Heathrow and Manchester to Islamabad and Lahore later this year.
Late last month Virgin secured creditor approval for a planned restructuring, which will pave the way for a £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) in refinancing over the next 18 months. A UK court hearing to approve the restructuring plan is due on 2 September.
