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Virgin Atlantic drops Shanghai flights, its last East Asian destination

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Whilst no announcement has been made, Virgin Atlantic appears to be dropping its daily flight to Shanghai.

The flight has been removed from the schedule from 26th October, which is the last day of the summer flying season.

Shanghai is the only Virgin Atlantic route to China and indeed the only remaining route to East Asia.

Virgin Atlantic to drop flights to Shanghai

Virgin Atlantic has flown to Shanghai for over 20 years, so this is not the cancellation of a route being run as a trial. However, with Tokyo and Hong Kong dropped in recent years, it was beginning to look like an outlier.

The logic for dropping it is there, I accept. At 13-14 hours each way, due to the diversion for flying around Russian airspace, the same aircraft could do two runs to New York or Boston in the time taken for one return to Shanghai. No doubt we will see Virgin Atlantic launch yet another new route to the USA in the next few weeks.

It is well publicised that Chinese tourism has not yet returned en masse post pandemic. Chinese tourism to the UK has also been disproportionately hit by the removal of VAT reclamation on luxury goods (indeed, all goods) for tourists.

For those Chinese who do still choose to visit the UK, flight times are shorter on Chinese carriers which are still flying over Russia.

What does this mean for the new Seoul route?

Looking eastwards, Delhi is now, surprisingly, the furthest east you can fly on Virgin Atlantic.

The airline is still committed to launching flights to Seoul as soon as the Korean Air and Asiana merger is approved.

This route is likely to go ahead. Virgin Atlantic is being given extra slots at Heathrow specifically to fly to Seoul and Korean may have committed to purchase a minimum number of seats each day as part of its codeshare agreement.

The merger can only go ahead if another airline agrees to fly long-haul between the UK and Seoul so you can be fairly certain that it will happen, one way or another.

If you are booked to travel to Shanghai with Virgin Atlantic, the airline will be in touch to discuss rerouting. I suspect you will be encouraged to move to China Eastern as a fellow SkyTeam member.

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Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (149)

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

  • BBbetter says:
    17 Jul17 July 13:55

    Technically Bengaluru is further to the east than Delhi. Even looking at distance, Bengaluru route will be longer than Delhi.

  • StillintheSun says:
    17 Jul17 July 16:16

    Half of me is hoping Virgin refuse to re-route me. BA refused me previously and so I travelled with Qatar on BA dime and obtained sufficient tier points to obtain Silver BA status as well after suceeding at CEDR. Non-direct Qatar will be cheaper than direct China Eastern and a whole lot better. I’d be pretty confident of a win at AviationADR and/or MCOL in these circumstances. Moreover, cheapest Qatar one way back to LHR are £1,200 at the moment. Not much more than Virgin’s outrageous “taxes” on a one way points booking therefore risk of losing acceptable. I used a 241 as well so my points outlay was reduced into the bargain.

  • CJ says:
    17 Jul17 July 16:29

    I picked up some reward flights to Shanghai for the family a couple weeks ago during their sale. Had to transfer 90k points from Amex to Virgin specifically for it so really disappointed they’ve now cancelled the route. What are my options now as I kinda don’t want my points to be sat in Virgin and unable to fly to China with them now.

    • Mark says:
      17 Jul17 July 19:42

      Don’t take or accept a booking cancellation and insist that they reroute you. The fact that it’s a points redemption makes no difference to your rerouting rights.

  • Londonsteve says:
    17 Jul17 July 17:53

    Might Havana be back on the cards? Relatively short block times and there’s no longer a direct flight from the UK. I believe Havana was served by Virgin in the 90s. They mentioned a little while ago that it was on the cards, then nothing came of it but at the time the UK still had regular direct flights from MAN with TUI.

    • Jonathan says:
      17 Jul17 July 18:35

      Highly doubtful, since from now onwards, any previous travel (travel since January 2021) to Cuba means that you generally must arrange a visa to visit the U.S. …

  • Tom1 says:
    17 Jul17 July 18:02

    Email received – of course they don’t mention any rerouting options.

    “Depending on how you booked your flight, you have various options to claim a full refund.” Then differentiates between flights booked direct or through agent.

    Have plenty of time – so I think the key here is not to accept any refunds, right?

    • Jonathan says:
      17 Jul17 July 18:39

      They’ll prefer you to take a refund over re-routing, whatever you do, don’t take the refund if you still want to fly

  • RobH not Rob says:
    17 Jul17 July 18:13

    What a thread

  • Ironside says:
    17 Jul17 July 19:38

    Damn shame to lose PVG. Back in 2002, we chose VS over BA for a RTW ticket with the first stop there, because BA only flew to PEK.

    The nature of the alliances meant we ended up with a far more interesting itinerary further round the globe than if we’d been with OW. Certainly wouldn’t have seen quite so many Pacific islands.

  • Dan says:
    17 Jul17 July 20:36

    Update on July 17th 8pm London time: just called Virgin and the agent told me either to cancel for a refund or reroute on another Virgin destination with the same class of service. Currently there is no option offered to reroute on another airline to fly from Shanghai to London.

    • Rob says:
      17 Jul17 July 20:47

      Sit and wait. They have no choice but to offer it.

      • JDB says:
        18 Jul18 July 08:10

        Sitting and waiting didn’t work when VS pulled São Paulo and Hong Kong. The email of yesterday sent by a VP made zero mention of any policy coming into place and call centre agents no longer say more than the above. Some people will inevitably be lured into taking refunds and having their trips totally ruined at shortish notice.

        I recognise that you need to maintain good relations with airlines, but this is a bigger ‘whoa’ moment than BA’s RFS change. It’s pretty rare to see an airline so brazenly to give two fingers to passengers and the regulator in such a formal way. Also seems very rather short sighted with a new more interventionist government in place. Corneel and Louise really need to get their act together before lunchtime.

      • HampshireHog says:
        18 Jul18 July 10:59

        BA do issue rebooking guidelines after a few days, VS do have a track record of only offering refunds in their emails and contact centre comms. Nonetheless, if you give it a few days they will have an un published policy for rebooking, but it will require a knowledge of your rights and persistence.
        I had this experience when Hong Kong was cancelled. It’s really very poor behaviour.

    • Numpty says:
      18 Jul18 July 02:53

      Wait it out. Years back when BA cancelled KUL they tried to get me to take refund. After a few days the rebooking procedure was issued and they put me on Qatar. The actual BA internal memo was on Flyertalk, which aided the conversation with BA CS.

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