Expanding the Northern Powerhouse

For summer 2020 Virgin Atlantic will add around 43,000 seats, equating to around 11% capacity increase, to its Orlando, Barbados and Las Vegas routes. This brings their total to nearly 800,000 seat capacity for the season.

A few months ago Delta, Virgin, Air France – KLM announced a joint venture had received the tentative approval from the US Department of Transport, so this expansion of operations would benefit frequent flyers of all sides of that joint venture. Elite status or premium passengers would also get to try out the new Clubhouse lounge in Spring 2020.

The following increases are anticipated:

• Manchester – Barbados increases from 2x to 3x per week.
• Manchester – Las Vegas increases from 4x to 6x per week.
• Manchester – Orlando increases from 12x to 14x per week.

In addition to the Manchester increases, Gatwick will also get extra flights:

• London Gatwick – Orlando increases from 16x to 18x flights a week in the peak summer season.

Tickets for the extra seats go on sale from 9th November 2019, bookable at Virgin Atlantic's homepage.

Retail shops opening

Meanwhile Virgin Holidays have announced the opening of five more new “immersive” retail shops in Birmingham, Derby, Peterborough, Romford and Stoke-on-Trent, which brings their total to 12. The others are yet to open, scheduled for December 2019, but are located in Canterbury, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and St Albans.

Rach Wilton, Head of Retail at Virgin Holidays, commented:

“We’re delighted to continue to grow the Virgin Holidays experience for our customers with five further stores joining our expanding retail portfolio. We aim to create a truly immersive experience for our customers, which begins right at the point of booking. We want customers to be able to imagine themselves on their holiday from the moment they enter our stores by bringing the sights, sounds and tastes of their holiday to their home town.”

One wonders why London was left out though…?