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 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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