EXCLUSIVE: Virgin Atlantic cancels Sao Paulo before flights even start (for the 2nd time)

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• Peter K says:

  16 Nov16 November 16:42

  Surely they need to offer something a bit different. So maybe non-stop to the far east as a means to compete with the ME3 who require a stop. Routes into Africa? South America? Caribbean islands not served by BA?
  Flying to certain EU airports to generate through traffic onto the US and back (eg to serve American Italians who want to visit Rome and Romans who want to visit the USA).

  Just something to shake things up a bit.

  • NC says:

    16 Nov16 November 16:44

    Completely agree – for all the merits of the ME3 I’d much prefer to fly direct to the Far East. BA’s retreat from that region should leave an opportunity. Thailand feels on-brand for Virgin?

  • Rizz says:

    16 Nov16 November 17:16

    They need to sort out their hard product first. The primary reason I avoid VS is the seat lottery and the risk of being stuck in a woefully outdated uncomfortable seat – even on the premium LHR-JFK route.

    • Rob says:

      16 Nov16 November 17:31

      Indeed. You can end up like me the other week, booked into the brand new 330neo suite to see your aircraft swapped for the old 330 with no notice.

      • AL says:

        16 Nov16 November 21:48

        How often does this happen? I fly VS more than the average VS flier, I’d imagine, and I choose my flights based on the scheduled operating aircraft. Obviously that’s subject to change, but I’ve had very few changes.

    • Chris W says:

      17 Nov17 November 07:17

      Yeah if they have spare aircraft they should be concentrating on refurbishing the business cabins on the 787s.

      • Rhys says:

        17 Nov17 November 07:54

        No decision will be made on that until they decide whether to keep the 787s or not. They still have some time to decide – I think they come up for their leases in 2025

        • jjoohhnn says:

          17 Nov17 November 10:43

          If they aren’t going to keep them are unlikely to get replacements in time before they go off lease considering 2025 starts in 13.5 months, unless they already have something else lined up of course.. 787’s make up 40% of the fleet.

        • Rhys says:

          17 Nov17 November 11:52

          40% of a relatively small fleet! 17 787s I believe.

          If buying then I’m sure Airbus would be happy to give them some early slots on the A330neos. The other option is to see what the lessors have got available.

          The capacity of Virgin’s A330neos and 787-9s is virtually identical. If I were them I’d see if the 787-9 actually offer anything for their network (a tiny bit of range, perhaps) but otherwise I think it makes more sense to consolidate the fleet around the A350/A339 and ditch the 787s and the complexity that comes with it. Not quite that simple, of course – flight crew would need retraining, so I’m sure if the 787s are priced right they will keep them.

        • Littlefish says:

          17 Nov17 November 13:26

          I really hope Virgin keep their 789s (and A350s). The A330neo’s still have 8,000ft cabin altitude and I’ve been able to successfully avoid their A330 planes. Is there any hope the newer-style UC seats in the A330neo would fit in the 789s?

        • Rhys says:

          17 Nov17 November 15:41

          It would fit – that’s not the issue.

  • Chris W says:

    17 Nov17 November 07:18

    I don’t think there would be any Carribbean islands BA don’t fly to that would have enough demand for a flight by Virgin. It would be more sensible to add a tag to an existing flight

• Chris says:

  16 Nov16 November 16:42

  My money is on RR Trent 1000 issues again rearing their head meaning more down time for the already busy 789s. Air NZ have preemptively canned Seoul as a result and their fleet is similar age.

  • Rhys says:

    17 Nov17 November 07:55

    The Trent issues are largely sorted. The issues you are talking about are the Pratt & Whitney engines, which are on the 737 max and A320neos etc.

    • jjoohhnn says:

      17 Nov17 November 10:46

      A220. Airbaltic, a large operator just ordered 30 more though, so they must have some faith in the PW or got a stonking deal!

      • Rhys says:

        17 Nov17 November 11:45

        Of course. The Trent now performs well too – doesn’t mean RR didn’t have trouble with it five years ago!

• Alex G says:

  16 Nov16 November 17:35

  Makes Virgin sound like a bit of a joke.

  Why would you book a flight on a new route with Virgin when past experience shows that it may never take off?

  A couple of US routes that nobody does but which could be interesting;

  London to Anchorage, summer only.

  London to Hawaii, all year. Possibly stopping at ANC in the summer. Would make more sense for BA though as they could pick up European traffic.

  • Dan says:

    16 Nov16 November 18:17

    Because in the rare case that they cancel it you can get rebooked on a different airline. Why wouldn’t you book it?

    • Paul says:

      16 Nov16 November 19:56

      They recently cancelled Austin and refused to even rebook me on a one stop alternative with Delta via ATL or KLM via AMS, both of whom are codeshare partners. I wouldn’t be too confident that “you can get rebooked on a different airline” …

  • Rizz says:

    17 Nov17 November 00:34

    I don’t think ANC or HNL could survive without any connectivity, they’re relatively small markets.

    There were some rumors a few months ago that Hawaiian is thinking about direct flights to London. Interestingly, the distance from HNL is almost the same as LHR-SIN, so not as far as I initially thought.

    • kitten says:

      18 Nov18 November 16:24

      Hawaiian’s aircraft generally not that comfortable though and it would be a long flight.

  • Rhys says:

    17 Nov17 November 07:57

    Virgin has successfully launched plenty of routes on time. Last month it launched the Maldives, Dubai and Turks & Caicos. Clearly Sao Paulo is not representative.

    • JDB says:

      17 Nov17 November 08:21

      I’m not sure that three launches (“plenty” ?)looks particularly good against the cancellations of Hong Kong and Austin and now a year’s delay for São Paulo. It’s a very amateur look.

      • Rhys says:

        17 Nov17 November 09:09

        Hong Kong wasn’t so much cancelled as that it never really came back after covid!

        • Kamil says:

          17 Nov17 November 14:23

          They blamed it on the Russian Airspace. They were flying during Covid.

        • Rhys says:

          17 Nov17 November 15:38

          Airline schedules were all over the place during covid – let’s not pretend things were operating as usual! Strong cargo demand would have helped a lot.

  • AlanC says:

    17 Nov17 November 08:06

    I was on a recent tier point run / 6 day holiday to Hawaii. Surprised at hearing a good few Brit accents.

  • @mkcol says:

    17 Nov17 November 10:05

    I remember when First Choice Airways had placed the initial order for 787s the tour operating side of the business was touting that they’d then be able to offer package holidays to Hawaii with non stop flights.

    That went well.

• brian says:

  16 Nov16 November 18:06

  How annoying, as someone who flies this route at least once a year it was nice to have another option. Won’t be booking any time before 2026 based on the recent failed attempts.

• Gentle Giant says:

  16 Nov16 November 22:08

  Twice unlucky for me and the Mrs. The LHR-GRU route is very poor with both BA and Latam. Monopoly route = substandard planes and service. I suppose I will get AF again (not disappointed).
  VA need to get their act together, poor planning, and I take 25 with a pinch of salt.

  • JDB says:

    16 Nov16 November 23:14

    BA flies that route with an A350 which isn’t generally considered a “substandard” aircraft and they used to fly a jumbo which was rather comfortable. LATAM is fairly second rate which is disappointing as LAN used to be rather good.

• Duck Ling says:

  17 Nov17 November 07:15

  The big problem Virgin will always have with launching routes like Sao Paulo is they are a London-centric airline with little inward feed.

  Yes, BA flies daily from LHR to GRU. Yes, those flights are consistently full. But, if you were to take one of those flights you would probably notice that the overwhelming majority of fellow passengers are not brits travelling from the UK to Sao Paulo but are people originating in european cities and flying via LHR. Virgin doesn’t have access to these markets. Whilst being part of SkyTeam may help them out a little, their partners will likely be sending Brazil bound traffic via AMS with KL or CDG with AF.

  But this is definitely making Virgin look weak. Not only ‘postponing’ GRU but also pulling out of AUS.

  • 1958 says:

    17 Nov17 November 07:50

    You have hit the nail on its head.
    Virgin announces new routes with a fanfare, but it’s all style, and no substance. BA has a thought-through strategy, but Virgin doesn’t appear to have anything similar.

    • Rhys says:

      17 Nov17 November 07:59

      Virgin’s strategy is to fly where it can make money, just as BA’s is. It’s for exactly that reason that Austin got pulled….

      • 1958 says:

        17 Nov17 November 08:48

        I think that you have oversimplified things. BA has a strategy on alliances / ownership that Virgin lack. BA has a strategy on connecting flights that Virgin don’t.

        • Rhys says:

          17 Nov17 November 09:07

          Virgin has benefitted hugely in the past 5 years from its partnerships with Delta and AF-KLM. Whether that goes far enough is up for debate. I’m sure Virgin would love a feeder network, but realistically, given slot constraints at Heathrow, how would it manage?

  • Dan says:

    17 Nov17 November 08:04

    LHR is far less of a hub for oneworld flights to Latin America than Madrid is.

  • Duck Ling says:

    17 Nov17 November 11:56

    Although they would benefit from the KL/AF/DL tie up I would imagine that would be more around code sharing on transatlantic routes.

    I can also see some logic in flying eastwards to the Middle East, India even Shanghai. With Virgin’s large US East Coast network they could easily tap into the transit market from the US plus pick up on the UK direct market.

    Some of their other destinations – LAX/SFO/MCO/MIA/LAS/Caribbean are all popular markets for UK originating traffic and can probably sustain their own.

    But Sao Paulo…..I doubt their SkyTeam friends would very much fancy sending their passengers via London on Virgin. KLM would be busy feeding its own daily flight and Air France would be more concerned with feeding their own TWO daily flights.

    If Virgin thought a little outside the box I could see them doing better with this flight out of LGW by entering into a codeshare agreement with Easyjet and tapping into their large network there. The problem with LHR is every airline flying in or out of there is feeding its own long haul flights or a member airline of its own alliance.

    • Nick says:

      17 Nov17 November 17:45

      Impossible. easyJet has opted out of the standard IATA model of airline operations. This means they couldn’t run codeshare operations even if they wanted to. The cost of complexity in adding that in would dwarf any benefit several times over, so it won’t happen however much VS might ask.

      Before some smartarse jumps in, the ‘connections by easyJet’ thing they touted for a while was literally just offering two separate tickets bought at the same time, where each airline agreed to rebook FOC if the other screwed up and everyone donated a bunch of staff at the intermediate station to fudge everything. There was no official consumer protection, no through baggage/BPs/IATCI, and it didn’t take a genius to predict it would be a major failure.

• Robert says:

  17 Nov17 November 07:57

  To have a 2nd false start on this route is embarrassing and unprofessional Virgin Atlantic. What are you doing? Do you know what you are doing? The commercial department at Virgin Atlantic need to sort themselves out and communicate with other departments.

  • jjoohhnn says:

    17 Nov17 November 10:49

    Covid wasn;t exactly their fault really was it?

• dshunter says:

  17 Nov17 November 08:55

  Extremely disappointing. I fly this route several times a year and used it as a reason to start building up flying club points. Looks like I’m stuck with BA as I haven’t seen reward availability in any class with LATAM for almost a year…

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