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“Virgin Atlantic to delay Accra launch and its return to Tel Aviv” (The Times)

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The Times had an article yesterday (paywall) on the problems facing both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic as they struggle with unreliable Rolls-Royce engines on their Boeing 787 fleets.

We covered the problems at British Airways earlier this week.

Kuwait and Bahrain flights will be cancelled from April, potentially permanently, whilst American Airlines is taking over BA’s Dallas-Fort Worth service and one of the two daily Miami flights. We have already seen the launch of Kuala Lumpur postponed by six months.

Trent 1000 engine

Virgin Atlantic has been very quiet about the state of its own Boeing 787 fleet.

However, according to The Times, the airline is planning to:

  • delay the launch of flights to Accra in Ghana, due to start on 1st May
  • delay the return to Tel Aviv, which is currently due on 30th March

The implication in The Times is that this will not be enough and that other services will also be chopped.

The 17-strong Boeing 787 fleet at Virgin Atlantic is reportedly one aircraft down, presumably due to parts being used to keep other aircraft flying, and this is expected to increase to two next year.

There is no quick fix to the issue, with Rolls-Royce struggling to obtain spare engine parts from its suppliers.

According to The Times, airlines have been able to cover Boeing 787 routes with other aircraft but it is not sustainable. The extra flying hours means that those aircraft now need to go for maintenance earlier than planned, reducing fleets further.

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Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (49)

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

  • Tiberius says:
    10 Nov10 November 04:30

    “Bahrain to be suspended between April and October” just to check did BA confirm it may be back in October? Didn’t see this reported elsewhere but great news if it’s not a permanent cancellation

    • Rob says:
      10 Nov10 November 11:06

      No, BA didn’t say that. KL was simply pushed back by six months. Dallas and Miami swaps with AA feel temporary due to AA’s shortage of long haul aircraft. Bahrain could be permanent.

  • pigeon says:
    10 Nov10 November 04:34

    An absolutely appalling state of affairs up in Derby. Unfortunately this is what happens when MBAs (and consultants) rather than engineers run an engineering firm. In some senses, this is worse than the MAX fiasco (albeit without the loss of life).

    Going forwards, I don’t see how any airline would pick Rolls Royce engines over GE, unless the Rolls Royce is basically free.

    • Rhys says:
      10 Nov10 November 10:05

      How is it worse than the MAX fiasco where 1) hundreds of people died and 2) changes were deliberately swept under the rug to maintain type rating?

      • pigeon says:
        10 Nov10 November 13:53

        Well, there have been previous rounds of issues with Trent engines (pre Covid) so it’s happened before.

        Also everything feels hushed up, the details are sparse. Whereas with the MAX, when they came out, it was all exposed.

        Now as I said, there’s been no loss of life here. But this is a lagging and somewhat imperfect indicator. And often it’s down to luck if there are deaths or not.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      10 Nov10 November 10:06

      Yet the share price is at all time high … they seem to be covering it up well from the market if it’s really that bad

      • Rhys says:
        10 Nov10 November 10:09

        Fixes are on the way…it’s just a question of how quickly they can industrialise them.

      • G says:
        10 Nov10 November 11:21

        Rolls Royce is basically an arm of the UK Government at this point – with the indolence and inefficiencies to match.

    • Camflyer says:
      11 Nov11 November 02:08

      It’s not just Rolls. There are also major engine issues with the Pratt & Whitney engines used on both the A320neo and A220 series aircraft, leading to significant delays and maintenance issues. The issues may not be as visible with short-haul, however: cancelling a daily rotation on a high frequency route, or keeping an A320ceo airframe around longer, or ACMI (wet lease) in, are all much less visible than the impact on long haul.

  • Littlefish says:
    10 Nov10 November 05:17

    I’ve also spotted some Virgin cancellations worked in to the LHR-JNB route in Jan and Feb; so possibly will be other routes are being used to have tactical cancellations spread the load across the remaining 789s.

    • pigeon says:
      10 Nov10 November 05:33

      Problem for Virgin is keeping the LHR slots – unlike BA they can’t backfill the cancelled flight slots with short haul flying. So I would expect the cancellations to be widely dispersed.

      I wouldn’t write off the possibility of some A330 and A350 cancellations – if there’s any way they can bring forward maintenance, so that the aircraft are available for all of summer, they will probably do this.

      • Rhys says:
        10 Nov10 November 10:06

        Not a problem – Virgin has an extensive network of partners that I’m sure would bite Virgin’s hand off to borrow some slots

  • JDB says:
    10 Nov10 November 06:02

    I wonder if Virgin will actually announce the launch of Seoul once the Korean/Asiana merger completes, possibly next month.

    • Novice says:
      10 Nov10 November 10:08

      Who would want to sit in a coffin seat all the way to Seoul though, add to that the crap food then I wouldn’t use them even if they offered me a free flight.

      Once was enough for me and that was 9 hrs too long.

    • G says:
      10 Nov10 November 11:24

      The Us DoT has not yet approved the merger. I suspect we’ll have a clear idew by the end of January though given the US DOT is the final hurdle.

      I’d be surprised – without significant concessions – if the US administration backtracks.

  • mradey says:
    10 Nov10 November 06:51

    As I just posted in yesterday’s chat thread, Virgin’s IT is having a bit of trouble with Accra…. maybe they are in the process of pulling it.

    Flight searches to Accra (i.e. the airport is autofilled in the flight search form) return a 404 error. Other data feeds will return searches to Accra – but there are no flights for the entire future booking window.

  • Paul says:
    10 Nov10 November 07:41

    These cancellations are in many ways “good for business” the range of revenue sharing agreements, partial ownership and lord knows what else means this picking up the slack are charging higher fares. Either way lose lose for consumer.

  • Dev says:
    10 Nov10 November 08:25

    Is the same engine issue that has been affecting airlines since pre-covid?

    IIRC, both BA and Virgin (amongst other airlines around the world) parked up 787s around 2018/2019 as well due to engine issues…

    • Rhys says:
      10 Nov10 November 10:08

      No – the engine issues have been caused by a variety of things. Some have been fixed, some are having fixes rolled out etc.

  • Jonathan says:
    10 Nov10 November 08:28

    I’m surprised they’re considering returning to Tel Aviv the way things currently are…

    • Rhys says:
      10 Nov10 November 10:02

      Not until April, as things currently stand, but it’s been delayed numerous times

      • Novice says:
        10 Nov10 November 10:12

        But who would want to go there tho? Can’t imagine a plane being full of people wanting to head there especially now.

        • Lev441 says:
          10 Nov10 November 10:32

          Israeli’s are still going about their lives. El Al are the only ones flying direct and they’re sold out for days – and they’re flying 2 x Dreamliners and 2 x 737s most days of the week.

        • eli says:
          11 Nov11 November 12:10

          Are you kidding? Life is almost completely as normal and I say this after us all rushing to the bomb shelter this morning at 5:55am

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