Virgin Atlantic, headquartered at Crawley, United Kingdom, began its services in the year 1984 with a flight to Newark Liberty International Airport. London Gatwick, London Heathrow and Manchester airports are its operational bases. This British carrier caters to 31 destinations in Africa, North America, Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean with a mixed fleet of Airbus and Boeing aircraft. It has codeshare partnerships with Jet Airways, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, Singapore Airlines, Air China, Flybe and Delta Air Lines. Recently, the carrier has made an announcement that starting May 2017, it will offer flight tickets to New York from Manchester.
Virgin Replacing Delta on the Manchester-New York Route
This new daily service between these two cities was actually formerly catered by Virgin Atlantic partner – Delta Air Lines. On this route, now an Airbus A330-330 aircraft would be deployed to cater the growing demands of passengers. From Manchester, the carrier is also offering six direct flights to the US, including the two recent ones to San Francisco and Boston. Speaking on this new development, the Executive Vice President (Commercial) of the airline said that this replacement shows the strong bond between the two airlines, and how it is a smart decision to use the right aircraft for the right route, in order to offer cheapest flights.
Delta and Virgin Making Strong Inroads into the US Pacific Northwest Market
Delta has recently announced that it will start a non-stop flight between London Heathrow, Oregon and Portland. This service will make it easier to reach the US Pacific Northwest region from London. Another announcement made was the Seattle to Heathrow service by Delta to be now served by a Virgin Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with additional 50 seats. Since the Delta-Virgin joint venture in 2014, this would be the first flight to the US Pacific Northwest for the latter carrier.
The new offering from Delta between London and Portland has been welcomed by both business and leisure tourists. Earlier flights between these two cities had at least one stopover. However, with this service, which will be four times a week, passengers will get more flight booking options. This flight is scheduled to start next year in May. The announcement of this service has made the Portland tourism industry excited since it gets the maximum number of tourists from the United Kingdom, each year. Currently, Portland has only one non-stop service from and to Europe via Amsterdam, Reykjavik and Frankfurt.
Experts believe that introduction of the non-stop service from Heathrow on this route will have a huge impact on the dynamics of this region, with both Delta and Alaska Airlines fighting hard to gain more market share. Apparently, Portland is the primary hub for Alaska.
Virgin Atlantic Comes Up with a Novel Idea to Promote Itself
The airline is not only expanding its network but also promoting itself in some interesting ways. Recently, it has announced a promotion plan called One Day. Under this plan, people who have tweeted in the past with the hashtag#oneday will get to realize their dream courtesy Virgin. All they need to do is to show that the tweet with the hashtag#oneday is theirs, and this will win them a prize, which is about helping them do things they wanted to do in One Day. The campaign will kick-start through an online video and will also be available on Instagram. The idea behind this unique campaign is to inspire others to achieve that one thing that they have always dreamed about.
It would be interesting to see if the carrier gets any positive results in its air ticket booking sales through this promotional campaign.
Sources: http://www.emeraldlakervresort.com/2016/07/virgin-atlantic-to-start-a-new-service-on-manchester-new-york-route.html
