Virgin Atlantic cancels all Cape Town flights in April 2025

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

• Mark says:

  14 Nov14 November 16:52

  Yes you could do.

• pigeon says:

  14 Nov14 November 19:09

  They are still finalising their policy – https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/nl/en/partner-hub/vsbulletins.html.

  I expect they’ll offer VS via JNB, perhaps even up gauging to an A350 to fit everyone in. But April isn’t peak season for Cape Town – it’s too cold to go to the beach, and you’ll have at least a couple of rainy days in a week.

  • Rob says:

    14 Nov14 November 19:30

    Annoyingly schools don’t finish until Fri 4th so not a lot of flexibility to pull our trip forward.

    • pigeon says:

      14 Nov14 November 19:58

      April is a good month for safari / Vic Falls though. Sure something is alluring about a CPT J redemption, but you might be better off locking in a good experience by re-routing to JNB instead of gambling on the weather.

      • Rob says:

        14 Nov14 November 20:29

        That’s the thing with kids though – virtually impossible to go during peak season (assuming we don’t want to go over Christmas) as they are in school.

• Ben says:

  14 Nov14 November 20:44

  Hi
  So I’m clear – there is no difference in legal rights or ‘carrier preference’ for being rebooked on a different carrier on same dates, whether you have reward seats or cash seats?

  • JDB says:

    14 Nov14 November 20:53

    @Ben – in theory you are absolutely right but in practice, it’s rather more complex.

    Other carriers aren’t necessarily willing to to make seats available of accept Virgin or BA reward tickets in the way they will generally (but not always) accept rerouted cash tickets from those airlines.

    Virgin should in due course offer some rerouting options but they probably won’t offer every convenient option that exists, and nor are they obliged to.

  • Rob says:

    14 Nov14 November 20:58

    None at all. The only carve out is for staff tickets I think.

    • Ben says:

      14 Nov14 November 21:00

      Thanks both
      Ps Rob you seem to be the only non-forum site reporting this – nice one 😀

      • Ben says:

        14 Nov14 November 21:04

        That doesn’t make sense as this is a forum! I meant apart from flyer talk this is the only site

    • pigeon says:

      14 Nov14 November 21:27

      The other theoretical carve-out is for corporate rate bookings (there’s a German court ruling here). Or things which aren’t available to the general public. But points bookings 100% included.

      • JDB says:

        14 Nov14 November 21:38

        @pigeon – reward tickets are 100% specifically included in the regulations, BUT as specified in previous posts, availability sometimes becomes an issue for reward tickets vs cash tickets by decision of the receiving airline. Virgin doesn’t have access to every apparently available seat on other carriers. This is a very important caveat that has increasingly come to light in recent months.

        It’s not an issue for last minute cancellations, but it is for longer term cancellations.

        • pigeon says:

          14 Nov14 November 23:15

          The “receiving” airline has no responsibility to you, whereas the cancelling airline does. I don’t see how the “receiving” airline can be blamed for anything. Virgin does have access to every seat on every airline in the world (okay, not the sanctioned ones) … if they are prepared to pay the going rate.

          Now they can make things difficult, e.g., they can offer you one barely “comparable” option on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. In short, minimally comply with the law. But if they offer you absolutely nothing after you’ve given them more than enough chance to do so, it’s easy for you to win at County Court.

        • Rob says:

          14 Nov14 November 23:35

          Worth noting that Norse Atlantic is charging VERY low rates to Cape Town at present so anyone in Economy or Premium on Virgin who paid cash may be better off taking the £ and rebooking directly.

        • JDB says:

          15 Nov15 November 05:51

          @pigeon – I would be very wary of casually saying “it’s easy for you to win at County Court” in these circumstances; it’s very rarely the case as those who rush to issue proceedings often quickly discover.

          I think you misunderstand how airlines provide availability to each other in the event of disruption – a seat showing on Amadeus just doesn’t mean that it’s available for these purposes; the rerouting rules don’t give you effective last seat availability of your choice. You actually highlight the issue about paying the “going rate” because an airline isn’t expected to buy the last seat for you at £5k or whatever.

          The Court of Appeal test of “necessary, appropriate and reasonable” applies. You will find the people who overstate their cases like this are the ones either not getting rerouted and/or losing in court. This was very clear in the lengthy KUL comments and previous reports of MCOL cases.

        • pigeon says:

          15 Nov15 November 11:21

          JDB, I was talking about cases where “they offer you absolutely nothing after you’ve given them more than enough chance to do so [ie offer something]”…

        • Bagoly says:

          17 Nov17 November 16:40

          @Rob: Unless Norse goes bankrupt before then.

• H says:

  16 Nov16 November 08:47

  Update as of 16th 8:30am – Despite being pro-actively emailed 2 days ago, still only offering rerouting via JNB + Airlink and no direct option being offered…

  ‘You can move your booking to a new date when our services commence or you may prefer us to rebook your travel with an alternative carrier.
  We can also reroute you to a different destination with Virgin Atlantic. While no change fees will apply, any fare difference will be applicable.
  If you wish to rebook, you can contact our Customer Centre for your options, from 16 November, on +44 344 209 2722. You can find other ways to contact us, including our web chat service or if you’re calling from outside the UK, here’

  • Ben says:

    16 Nov16 November 11:01

    What did you decide to do?

    • H says:

      16 Nov16 November 11:03

      Waiting for policy to be updated in website as it is still saying ‘We are diligently arranging rebooking options so please check here for further updates‘. Fingers crossed!

• Nick says:

  21 Nov21 November 10:24

  Anybody offered a direct flight option yet?

  • Rob says:

    21 Nov21 November 10:40

    There’s been no update here yet – https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/nl/en/partner-hub/vsbulletins.html – despite a note saying the options would be published last Saturday.

    You’re not getting a direct flight though (unless you’re in Economy or PE and get Norse). I’d be surprised if BA had seats left to sell given its Easter and even if it did it won’t be selling them to Virgin for the ‘mates rates’ price airlines pay in these scenarios.

    I am expecting to end up on KLM which, as its a day flight down, I’ll be OK with.

• H says:

  1 Dec1 December 08:15

  Not yet rebooked but feels like luck has run out on an improved policy. Has anyone had any luck with anything but the via JNB/Airlink option?

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