Virgin Atlantic is adding a second daily flight to Mumbai this winter season on the back of continued demand for travel to/from the city.
Virgin Atlantic’s second daily flight to Mumbai
Starting 27th October 2024, Virgin Atlantic will operate a second daily flight between London Heathrow (LHR) and Mumbai (BOM) with the following schedule:
- London Heathrow-Mumbai
- Departure time: 11:20
- Arrival time: 01:45 (the next day)
- Flight time: 8 hours and 55 minutes
- Flight number: VS358
- Mumbai-London Heathrow
- Departure time: 04:00
- Arrival time: 09:00
- Flight time: 10 hours and 30 minutes
- Flight number: VS359
These flights will be operated by Airbus A350-1000 aircraft featuring 44 lie-flat Upper Class Suites (Business Class), 56 Premium Economy seats and 235 standard Economy Class seats. The aircraft also features the airline’s signature social space for Upper Class passengers called “The Loft”.
There is a huge opportunity for us in India, it has a dynamic, fast-growing economy and we’re anticipating a huge growth in demand for international travel from the region. We know both our customers and people love travelling to India and we have a rich history in the destination. Next year marks 25 years of operations and the first time that we’ll offer more than one million seats from London Heathrow. The doubling of our Mumbai services reaffirms our strong commitment and will allow our customers to travel seamlessly throughout India and beyond, flying on one of the youngest fleets in the skies, with our signature personalised service, delivered by our amazing people.
Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer, Virgin Atlantic said.
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Virgin Atlantic will continue to operate a morning flight from Mumbai using Boeing B787-9 Dreamliners. The airline will offer easy connection options for those travelling from destinations throughout North America including Seattle, San Francisco and New York JFK, with Virgin Atlantic and its transatlantic joint venture partner, Delta Airlines.
Increased flying to India
The second daily flight to Mumbai will be Virgin Atlantic’s fifth daily flight to India – two each to Delhi and Mumbai and a daily service to Bengaluru. From 2025, Virgin Atlantic will offer over one million seats to the country, a 350% capacity growth since 2019. India is now the largest market for the airline after United States.
The London Heathrow-based airline says that alongside more options for passengers, the increase in flying is also a huge boost for cargo operations with additional capacity to support the movement of goods from the fashion, pharmaceuticals and tech sectors. With five daily services, Virgin Atlantic Cargo will offer over 40 million kg of space to and from India, a 336% increase in capacity versus 2019.
The carrier will also assign more Indian crew on its flights to India. Through GSA (General Sales Agent) partner InterGlobe Air Transport, the airline will now average four Indian cabin crew on each flight in order to deliver a more personalised service to Indian customers.
Mumbai-London is a busy market
This winter, there will be seven daily flights on offer between Mumbai and London Heathrow among three airlines – Air India, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. While Air India and Virgin Atlantic will operate twice-daily services, British Airways will have three daily flights on the route.
Air India will deploy Boeing B777s on both the flights, while Virgin Atlantic will deploy B787-9 and A350-1000 aircraft. British Airways will deploy B777s on two of the three flights while the third one will be operated by A350-1000 aircraft.
Featured image by Planespotters.net/Mohit Purswami
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