This week we are looking at a story we released on November 19, 2012 about Virgin Atlantic and the launch of their UK Domestic routes to London Heathrow from Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Here’s the original story: Virgin Atlantic to Fight BA in UK Domestic Market

Virgin Atlantic planned to launch air services from March 2013 after it revealed that it had secured the Heathrow Airport remedy slots awarded by the European Commission, ahead of Aer Lingus. This would place them as the only other airline to offer the domestic routes, alongside the bmi routes acquired by British Airways’ (BA) parent, International Consolidated Airline Group (IAG).

Without the short-haul remedy slots, BA would effectively have been able to continue to fly from Scotland to Heathrow uncontested, but Virgin Atlantic would be giving domestic flyers an alternative.

“Little Red came about through an enduring passion at Virgin Atlantic to make a difference for our customers. We really wanted it to be a success and everyone involved worked extremely hard and gave it their best efforts”

Craig Kreeger
Virgin Atlantic Airways

According to our previous report, Virgin Atlantic would find it tough to compete directly with BA traffic in the domestic skies, although the carrier had already proved its success with its long-haul developments.

The airline planned to primarily focus on its flying between Scotland and Heathrow, running multiple daily flights from March 31, 2013 and was working with a wet-lease partner to provide narrow body Airbus A320 aircraft to operate these short haul flights.

Two years on, and Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Little Red’ domestic operation is soon to be no more. In October this year, the UK carrier announced its plans to close its Little Red operation during summer 2015.

The routes, which are served on the airline’s behalf by Aer Lingus between London’s Heathrow Airport and Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Manchester, will be closed throughout 2015.

The decision has come after a major review of Virgin Atlantic’s wider network. Earlier this year, the UK carrier announced a network update offering five new daily transatlantic flights. The airline said the domestic operation had “not been able to make a positive contribution to Virgin Atlantic’s network.”

The Little Red operation was launched as an attempt to reintroduce consumer choice on key domestic services after British Airways’ takeover of bmi gave them a monopoly on the domestic routes.

According to Virgin Atlantic, the demand had been predominantly in direct point–to–point customers rather than anticipated connecting traffic.

Virgin Atlantic will end the London Heathrow – Manchester route at the end of March 2015 and the links from the UK capital to Aberdeen and Edinburgh at the end of September 2015.

“Little Red came about through an enduring passion at Virgin Atlantic to make a difference for our customers. We really wanted it to be a success and everyone involved worked extremely hard and gave it their best efforts,” said Craig Kreeger, chief executive officer, Virgin Atlantic Airways.