Virgin Atlantic announces its £1.2 billion rescue plan – but is it enough?

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• Phil says:

  14 Jul14 July 21:58

  Has anybody tried booking KLM Business Class flights with Virgin FC points? I am trying to book EDIAMS for December on the Virgin website and I repeatedly get error messages at the point of payment.

  • Jessiefan says:

    14 Jul14 July 22:24

    I couldnt get Delta or KLM via AMS upper class for points, even though cash fares showing – Economy was available but at high points

    • Mike says:

      14 Jul14 July 22:34

      There appears to be a lot of “phantom availability” of AF/KL reward flights on the Virgin website.

      Getting an error at point of payment is a strong sign of this. Try other dates or flights.

      I have been able to redeem a bunch of miles for AF business class long haul, on the VS website, so it is possible, but discovering what is real availability and what is phantom is a real pain in the butt.

• Aston100 says:

  14 Jul14 July 23:39

  Is there anywhere else they can fly to instead of the USA for the next year or so?
  More Asian destinations maybe?
  I think Sri Lanka for example is underrepresented.

  • C77 says:

    15 Jul15 July 01:17

    Dubai – route cancelled
    Sydney – route cancelled
    St Lucia – route cancelled
    Mauritius – route cancelled

    Columbo – BA entered the market briefly a few years ago as a tag on to Maldives but that ended when the Maldives flight became seasonal. Lack of connecting traffic would almost probably make this an unprofitable route for Virgin. Not to mention much Middle Eastern airline competition keeping the prices low. Market confidence in USA flying is really going to hit them hard. I guess with the significant cutbacks in South African Airways flying, there might be other markets they could tap into: Namibia, Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe don’t currently benefit from any direct air routes to London, have relatively niche high end tourism markets, local mineral markets and industries requiring cargo demand.

    From a leisure perspective I’d be looking to reinstate Indian Ocean (Mauritius) and perhaps tagging on a shuttle to Mombasa or Zanzibar.

  • C77 says:

    15 Jul15 July 01:19

    Flying to a new destination for just a year until your bread and butter destination demand returns isn’t really going to impress anyone. Would need commitment for a good 3-5yrs to build up the demand and get established. You could probably write off any profitability for any new destination in the first year.

    • Nick says:

      15 Jul15 July 05:55

      True. But I do wonder whether something like a 2 x weekly Bali as a pure holiday route might actually work for them. Biggest challenge I guess is that it’s primarily a millennial/GenZ destination so reliant on the group most likely to be hit by a tanking economy (and who are used to connecting in Dubai so it has to be price competitive). Still, if I were them I would try it in the absence of any realistic US leisure flying for a while.

      BA have also found profitable niche cargo ops between the far/near east and US. The aircraft land at LHR on the way but only for refuelling and recrewing, not loaded/unloaded. This must surely be an option for VS too now (there’s plenty of business to go round, but the cargo customers demand higher surety over liquidity before they charter an aircraft than they’ve been able to get from VS recently).

      • C77 says:

        15 Jul15 July 06:38

        I think the problem with Bali would be the sector length would be pretty much at the crew duty maximum operating limits with little/no room for any flight delay. You’ve got to be approaching 16hrs nonstop which invariably would be longer returning west and require additional downroute time for crew (as per QF LHR-PER crew) due to the ultra long sector so not necessarily good use of resources. Plus given VS would be freeing up A330’s in a leisure config that were based out of MAN/LGW for relatively short by comparison TATL routes, perhaps these aren’t the right aircraft for that sector. Range would most definitely be an issue. Simply swapping out a Dreamliner instead wouldn’t necessarily be feasible either. Also even if the market was there to justify twice weekly service, is essentially going to be from one market without much inbound support from DPS traffic. Then as you mention the market is swamped with competition from Asian and Middle Eastern carriers. You’ve also got the KLM direct (1 stop service) from AMS. I just don’t see Bali being anything near sustainable let alone viable.

        VS have generated £100m additional revenue from recent additional cargo flights of late plus repatriation services on behalf of the British Government.

        • Spaghetti Town says:

          15 Jul15 July 14:47

          A risky destination would be Perth, Direct. Would certainly bring them into the spotlight. I’m not sure virgin has the correct J Class in the 787-9 for it though. Only problem is it takes up 3 aircraft at a time.

        • Spaghetti Town says:

          15 Jul15 July 14:48

          I also think Sao Paulo may of worked for them if they’ve got there. You can see in recent years VS have tried to break free from relying on the USA (Tel Aviv, Sao Paulo, Cape Town).

• Chris says:

  15 Jul15 July 06:26

  Weiss’s statement leaving out the customers just goes to show how Virgin have completely lost their way. Virgin have lost the trust of past and future customers and as a customer who they except to wait 4 months to be paid I know others like myself will never use Virgin again. Kempner is only going to get richer sometime in the future as usual!

• cinereus says:

  15 Jul15 July 06:35

  I will still be spending 95%+ of my VS miles on Virgin Wines as the risk is too great otherwise.

• Phil Gollings says:

  15 Jul15 July 06:43

  Saw a Virgin uniformed lady on the train from London on Monday so assumed they had already started flying again.
  Hope they survive to Xmas when our redemption flight is

• southlondonphil says:

  15 Jul15 July 08:43

  Trivia Note –

  Davidson Kempner recently bought Oak Furnitureland out of administration in a pre-pack deal – maybe there will be future opportunities to spend Flying Club points on a sofa? 🙂

  • Jessiefan says:

    15 Jul15 July 13:12

    Sure it wasn’t a flat pack deal?

• David S says:

  15 Jul15 July 09:31

  I would love them to fly to DPS as well. They really need to diversify away from the USA. They also flew briefly to Vancouver I believe and this is a key issue with VS in that they change their routing too frequently.

  • marcw says:

    15 Jul15 July 09:43

    Problem with VS they are a DL muppet. They will fly wherever DL orders them to fly to.

    • Mikeact says:

      15 Jul15 July 12:07

      Interesting partner news ;

      ‘The COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc for airlines, as evidenced by Delta’s second quarter performance. The Atlanta-based airline announced a GAAP pre-tax loss of $7 billion in the June quarter 2020, reflecting a loss per share of $9.01 on a total revenue of $1.5 billion.’

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