Virgin Atlantic Taps Las Vegas, Orlando For Route Restarts

Virgin Atlantic will resume flights from London Heathrow (LHR) to Las Vegas (LAS) and Orlando (MCO), Florida, from Nov. 8, the day the US is reopening its borders to vaccinated international travelers.

The London-based carrier will also restart flights from Manchester (MAN) in England to MCO and New York Kennedy (JFK) on Nov. 8.

“Following the welcome news that transatlantic travel can resume for fully vaccinated visitors, Virgin Atlantic is keen to ensure its customers can take to the skies quickly and is offering customers the earliest possible opportunity to reconnect with loved ones or take that much anticipated holiday,” Virgin Atlantic said in a statement.

Both the LHR-MCO and MAN-MCO routes will be operated daily. Virgin Atlantic said Orlando is the most booked destination across its network currently.

The carrier said it will place the Airbus A350-1000 on the LHR-MCO route for a week from Nov. 8. It did not specify which aircraft would fly the route from Nov. 15.

The LHR-LAS route will be flown daily with a Boeing 787-9. MAN-JFK daily service will be operated with an Airbus A330.

Also on Nov. 8, Virgin Atlantic will increase 3X-weekly LHR-Johannesburg (JNB) service to daily. The carrier plans to restart LHR-Cape Town (CPT) service from Dec. 17, flying the route 3X-weekly. Both South Africa routes will be flown with a 787-9.

Chief Commercial Officer Juha Jarvinen said: “We know there’s pent-up customer demand for travel to South Africa, which is reflected in our recent bookings surge, so I’m thrilled we can offer our customers more services to both Johannesburg and Cape Town. We’re expecting a high proportion of leisure travelers on these routes, taking advantage of the winter Sun, the safaris and of course, the world-famous wine region.”

Photo credit: joepriesaviation.net

Aaron Karp

Aaron Karp is a Contributing Editor to the Aviation Week Network.