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I came across this chart showing current and historic Virgin routes today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Virgin_Atlantic_destinations
Is it just me who thinks their terminated routes are far more attractive than their current routes?! I’d have thought Mauritius, Japan, Cancun and Dubai fit the Virgin “brand” far more than Shanghai and Islamabad…
Fitting the brand, and running a profitable business are two different things. At the moment it’s all about survival, in a couple of years who knows.
I was always surprised they dropped Dubai, and probably regretted it during the pandmemic when it remained open.
The issue with Dubai is that you either run your return flight at 2am, which is about as popular as a bag of sick with the leisure market, or leave a $300m aircraft sitting on the tarmac for 10-12 hours. BA, Emirates and Etihad let you fly both ways on day flights if you wish.
I came across this chart showing current and historic Virgin routes today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Virgin_Atlantic_destinations
Is it just me who thinks their terminated routes are far more attractive than their current routes?! I’d have thought Mauritius, Japan, Cancun and Dubai fit the Virgin “brand” far more than Shanghai and Islamabad…
Maybe so, maybe not. There’s obviously a huge family visits market from the M62 corridor to Pakistan. A lot of the 2nd and 3rd (and 4th!) generation are now very successfull doctors/lawyers/accountants/business owners and will pay good money to sit at the pointy end and also to not to endure the “service” on Pakistan Airways which is the only direct competitor.
I was always surprised they dropped Dubai, and probably regretted it during the pandmemic when it remained open.
The issue with Dubai is that you either run your return flight at 2am, which is about as popular as a bag of sick with the leisure market, or leave a $300m aircraft sitting on the tarmac for 10-12 hours. BA, Emirates and Etihad let you fly both ways on day flights if you wish.
Agree. After catching the 2.10am BA red eye in Economy from DXB on Monday it’s not an experience we’ll be repeating again soon!
Sadly, Its why I never book a flight with Virgin despite us both having a stack of points. So many nice destinations got cancelled over the years and you dont know what’s next
I feel the same about BA ‘leisure’ routes. Didn’t we exhaust all those in the 70’s?
Living in the “M62 corridor”, I think it is more of a ‘cutting’ than a ‘corridor’, the motorway that would never be closed (due to snow but often is) etc., and given the dire 5hr+ rail connections to Heathrow, I would have thought that Virgin Atlantic would seize upon the vacation of BA from Manchester to offer many more routes. Perhaps they do not want risk taking on the low cost operators, like Jet2, already building an arsenal of longer-haul, single aisle planes?
I was always surprised they dropped Dubai, and probably regretted it during the pandmemic when it remained open.
The issue with Dubai is that you either run your return flight at 2am, which is about as popular as a bag of sick with the leisure market, or leave a $300m aircraft sitting on the tarmac for 10-12 hours. BA, Emirates and Etihad let you fly both ways on day flights if you wish.
Which is why I’m surprised they don’t do a fifth freedom from Dubai to Male, reunion, or some other Indian Ocean destination. Even Addis isn’t out of the realm of impossibility…
Well the good news is since I first posted this is that Virgin have announced flights to the Maldives from late 2023.
There were even rumours a few months ago of Virgin launching a route to Seoul (which would have been an amazing fit and filled a real “gap” given the number of cancelled BA routes to the Far East). Haven’t anything since though… keeping fingers crossed…
Riyadh and Accra, lol.
Will there be some “encouragement” from those governments? The St Lucia route has been on and off depending on subsidies!
It does feel like theyre just taking routes that theyre being paid to operate now.
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