Virgin Atlantic is set to return to the skies this summer, announcing new destinations for August and beyond.Virgin recently announced plans to return to the following destinations:
Heathrow to Barbados (August 1)Heathrow to San Francisco (August 4)Heathrow to Tel Aviv (August 9)Heathrow to Miami (August 18)Heathrow to Lagos (August 23)Heathrow to Atlanta (August 25).
In September the airline will resume services from Heathrow to Washington, D.C, Seattle, Las Vegas, Mumbai, Delhi and Johannesburg, with flights operating from Heathrow to Boston in October.
Last month, the airline opened bookings for the summer of 2021, announcing 24 destinations. It said in a statement: “As countries start to lift travel restrictions and demand for travel begins to return, it is expected that Virgin Atlantic will steadily increase passengers flying in the second half of the year, with a further, gradual recovery through 2021.
“It has been a difficult time for the long-haul airline. In early May, Virgin Atlantic announced it would pull out of Gatwick Airport and cut 3,150 jobs, roughly a third of its workforce, in an attempt to cut costs. The company has been particularly exposed to the virus as long-haul flights have been the worst affected in the sector, and are likely to take the longest to recover. As Virgin Atlantic’s Chief Commercial Officer, Juha Jarvinen, describes this move:
“As countries around the world begin to relax travel restrictions, we look forward to welcoming our customers back onboard and flying them safely to many destinations across our network. From 20th July we are planning to resume some services and then from 1st August onwards, we will resume passenger flying to 17 additional destinations around the world including Tel Aviv, Miami, Lagos and San Francisco.
However, we are monitoring external conditions extremely closely, in particular the travel restrictions many countries have in place including the 14 day quarantine policy for travellers entering the UK. We know that as the Covid-19 crisis subsides, air travel will be a vital enabler of the UK’s economic recovery. Therefore, we are calling for UK Government to continually review its quarantine measures and instead look at a multi-layered approach of carefully targeted public health and screening measures, including air bridges, which will support a successful and safe restart of international air travel for passengers and businesses.”
