Virgin Atlantic announced on Thursday their plan to return to passenger flying. From July 20th and 21st, the carrier will resume service from London-Heathrow to New York-JFK, Los Angeles, Orlando, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Today, Virgin Atlantic announced their return to passenger flying with service from London-Heathrow to New York-JFK, Los Angeles, Orlando, Hong Kong and Shanghai from July 20th and 21st, 2020. As travel restrictions are eased the carrier will increase service throughout the second half of the year and in to 2021 as passenger demand recovers. The flights will be loaded into the airline’s systems over the next two weeks and will operate from London-Heathrow Terminal 2. Virgin Atlantic has implemented enhanced cleaning practices at check-in, boarding gates and onboard, including the use of electrostatic spraying and of high grade disinfect onboard all aircraft. Guests will also receive a personal “Health Pack” which includes medical grade face masks (which must be worn onboard), surface wipes and hand gel. Temporarily, the carrier will offer a modified hot food service to minimize contact which will be prepared in a COVID-safe monitored environment and delivered directly to the customers seat. In Thursday’s announcement, Virgin Atlantic’s Chief Commercial Officer, Juha Jarvinen said in part,
“As the Covid-19 crisis stabilizes and demand slowly returns, we are looking forward to welcoming our customers back onboard and flying them safely to their favourite destinations. To ensure the health and safety of our customers and our people, we’re introducing new measures at every point in the journey to offer peace of mind when taking to the skies with us. Our planned first flights will be to Orlando and Hong Kong on the 20th July; 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 a multi-layered approach of carefully targeted public health and screening measures, which will allow for a successful and safe restart of international air travel for passengers and businesses. We are planning to announce more destination restart dates in the next two weeks for the month of August.”
In addition to the passenger flights announced today, Virgin Atlantic continues to operate vital cargo-only flights to keep the global supply chain moving and transporting critical supplies worldwide. In June, the carrier will operate over 600 cargo-only flights to destinations such as Tel-Aviv, Chicago, Brussels, Johannesburg, Lagos and Miami. Additionally, Virgin continues their partnership with the UK’s Department of Health and NHS, planning 17 weekly cargo charters from Shanghai and Beijing during June and July. The carrier has thus far carried over 44 million PPE items from China to the UK.
Source: Virgin Atlantic