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No Virgin Atlantic passenger flights – zilch – for at least a week in late April

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Virgin Atlantic has been running a skeleton service for the last few weeks.  

It had previously announced it was only operating New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong flights this month. This bare-bones schedule enabled the repatriation of UK residents.

Whilst these flights are set to continue on certain dates, Routes Online is reporting that there are no scheduled passenger services between 21st April and 26th April.  Nothing at all.

If you are booked on any of these services you are entitled to a full refund or rebooking as per the terms in our extensive article here.

It’s not clear what will happen to Virgin Atlantic’s services after 26th April although it is highly likely to continue its rolling program of cancellations for at least a few more weeks.

Virgin Atlantic planes continue to fly in order to transport essential cargo.  Virgin Atlantic does not have dedicated cargo aircraft, of course, so some of its aircraft will fly with a skeleton crew.

The airline recently flew its first-ever cargo-only charter flight to transport essential medical supplies.  In a statement Virgin said it is flying eight cargo charters to Shanghai this month in partnership with the Department of Health and the NHS.

Many airlines have been placing additional cargo in passenger seats and overhead bins to maximise the use of space. Lufthansa recently tweeted some photos:

Special dispensation is required to carry cargo in the cabin as well as the hold, which Virgin Atlantic says it has from the Civil Aviation Authority.  One cabin crew member is still required to monitor the cargo in the cabin even if there are no passengers.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 15,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

A generous earning rate for a free card at 0.75 points per £1 Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 40,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points. 

(Want to earn more Virgin Points?  Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (64)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • jamie says:
    8 Apr8 April 15:37

    I don’t think there is any surprise over this

  • Baji Nahid says:
    8 Apr8 April 15:40

    OT: Any assistance would be appreciated. Bought some flights to NYC but the travels are on KLM and Delta with a stop in Amsterdam. These tickets however were ticketed by virgin. If for any reason, Virgin folds, does this mean the tickets are gone? I bought these with a credit card, travel is in end of May.

    I appreciate any help!

  • Kip says:
    8 Apr8 April 16:06

    You have to keep some aircraft flying as both planes and pilots need re-certification after prolonged periods on the ground.
    Further talks going today between Virgin and the Government. Personally, I’d be very surprised if there was no help given especially given the knock-on effects for companies like Rolls-Royce and Airbus.

    • Rob says:
      8 Apr8 April 16:17

      I am leaning the same way. Macron and Merkel are both waving very large cheques around at the moment. It would look bad if we didn’t. Realistically it makes little difference to the shareholders if the Government takes a 49% stake in return because neither Delta or Virgin is in it for dividends (they’ve rarely had any!) – Delta gets its return from the traffic it drives and Virgin Group gets its licensing fee for the name plus the general halo effect on the brand.

      The fact that easyJet could borrow £600m from the Government because it had rated corporate debt, but Virign is disqualified because it has no rated debt in issue, is also clearly unfair.

      • marcw says:
        8 Apr8 April 16:27

        How many airplanes are owned by easyjet, lughtansa, afklm… and Virgin?

        • Rob says:
          8 Apr8 April 17:32

          In terms of capital structure, lease vs loan makes virtually no difference, and indeed the leases should be capitalised on the balance sheet in the same way that a loan would be.

          • marcw says:
            8 Apr8 April 17:43

            What does the taxpayer get if you give VS a loan, but in 3 months it goes bust because the main VS market is gone (USA will be the hardest hit country worldwide by covid-19,,, and its just the beginning). The USA market will take years, literally, to recover.

      • Heathrow Flyer says:
        8 Apr8 April 18:48

        +1.

        Also let’s not forget the US airlines are being hosed with cash.

        Still, having said that, I ran to the Hilton hills with my Virgin miles…

        • Mikeact says:
          8 Apr8 April 19:46

          And how many more will dilute their miles…..?
          I don’t know how many miles Virgin (Flying Club) are on the hoc for, but if must be a considerable number of millions and worth a considerable amount of £’s or $’s.
          Just how long can they keep up redemptions for third party offers as well as future flights on partners, before they have to call it a day.
          Virgin Australia are already placing limits on non flight redemptions, and as for ‘they are a separate company’, my understanding is that all Flying Club miles, from wherever, all go into one pot regardless. I stand to be corrected.

      • RMarkD says:
        8 Apr8 April 19:03

        If the UK government underwrites any deal by taking an equity stake, they should surely insist on stopping the brand licensing payments? If they don’t support the airline, the brand is worthless – so why allow the license fee to continue to be paid?

        • Rob says:
          8 Apr8 April 19:07

          The Virgin brand is not worthless without the airline. The airline may be worthless without the Virgin brand.

          • Nick_C says:
            8 Apr8 April 19:22

            The Virgin Brand will be damaged though when Virgin Atlantic goes bust, as it must be allowed to.

            We don’t need a national airline. We decided that over 30 years ago.

          • Lady London says:
            8 Apr8 April 22:05

            That’s a really good point Rob.

            So let the airline go now, let all the debts and leases go, walk away from it all and wait …. And then maybe one day pay rent to plaster the Virgin name over a newly constituted airline entity?

        • memesweeper says:
          8 Apr8 April 19:09

          absolutely — or at least reduced to a level of the cost of a quick and cheap rebrand to ‘UK National Airline’ in black Arial font.

      • Ken says:
        8 Apr8 April 22:54

        EasyJet made money, Virgin didn’t.

        Rather than piss money up the wall, just let someone else have a crack with the slots.

        If there is a bailout why stick at 49% ?
        If a 70% stake was ok in RBS why not a similar amount in Virgin ?

        • Rob says:
          8 Apr8 April 22:57

          British Airways would go bonkers if the Government had voting control at Virgin, that’s why. And not unreasonably so. The equity is worth very little anyway – it is simply option value in the unlikely event the airline becomes hugely valuable – so it’s not worth the grief in my view.

          Here is the French finance minister today: ““It’s not a helping hand that Air France will need, it’s massive support from the state. Air France will have this massive support from the state as we want to preserve this airline at any cost.” Doesn’t seem very fair to me.

          • Ken says:
            8 Apr8 April 23:11

            BA will go bonkers in the event of any bailout contrived to help Virgin anyway.

            Basically funnelling money into Bransons pockets to get what exactly?
            A weak sub sized competitor.

            If a controlling stake is too political, buy the slots off Virgin and lease them back.
            At least we stand chance of recovering any bailout

          • Rob says:
            9 Apr9 April 08:29

            Slots are mortgaged.

      • Opuada says:
        8 Apr8 April 23:25

        So how will the government get their money back? If the business can’t even make enough profit for dividends OR will struggle to grow for a while Hence affecting the value of their stake?

        • Rob says:
          9 Apr9 April 08:28

          It will be a loan but with equity thrown in to justify the low pricing on the loan.

    • insider says:
      8 Apr8 April 16:18

      slippery slope though..

      • J says:
        8 Apr8 April 16:43

        How? The major US airlines are taking state aid. All the other major European ‘full service’ airlines are taking state aid Lufthansa, SAS, Finnair, Air France, KLM, etc.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    8 Apr8 April 16:16

    Does anyone know when VS are temporarily moving terminals (presumably to T2) at Heathrow? It could make sense that they do the move when they’re not flying anywhere.

    The Heathrow website states “In the coming weeks, other airlines will also move operations from Terminals 3 and 4 to Terminals 2 and 5. Please speak to your airline directly to confirm which terminal your flight will operate from” but I can’t find anything about the dates the airlines are actually moving.

  • Andy says:
    8 Apr8 April 16:27

    Virgin still appear to be flying LHR>>BGI and MAN>>BGI

  • James says:
    8 Apr8 April 16:37

    And Virgin also posted its own pictures of NHS/cargo flights too:
    https://twitter.com/VirginAtlantic/status/1246083718831312897?s=09

  • Jordan D says:
    8 Apr8 April 16:45

    Virgin will be operating at least 1 of the repatriation flights from India, which kick off from today.

  • Pablo says:
    8 Apr8 April 17:04

    Just been charged by Curve 1.5% for paying Brighton bill. I thought the fee was only applicable to HMRC payments 🙁

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