Virgin Atlantic announced its second daily to Mumbai on April 03, 2024. The flight, which begins operations in winter schedule, beginning October 27, 2024 is now open for sale. The airline will deploy the A350-1000 on this route which will make it a doubly daily operation between London Heathrow and Mumbai for Virgin Atlantic.
The new flight to Mumbai will be the airline’s fifth daily service to India and from 2025, Virgin Atlantic will offer over one million seats to the country, a 350% capacity growth since 2019, cementing India’s position as a key strategic market for the airline and marking its largest area of growth outside the United States. Alongside customer flying, the increase 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 airline has a partnership with IndiGo and the partnership offers 36 additional destinations and has so far connected over 80,000 customers since the launch in September 2022.
London Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai
The current Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) between India and UK allows for 56 weekly frequencies each way between London Heathrow and Delhi, Mumbai. More details on the BASA can be found here.
The 56 weekly frequencies from the UK side will see a division of two daily flights between Delhi and London Heathrow by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, making it 28 weekly frequencies. From Mumbai, currently British Airways operates double daily services, while Virgin Atlantic operates a daily service – a sum of 21 weekly flights from Mumbai taking the total to 49 between London Heathrow and Delhi, Mumbai. The addition of a daily flight will make it 56 and thus ending the quota on the UK side.
However, there is a catch. British Airways operated triple daily flights to Mumbai last winter and has the same open for sale in Winter 2024. This leaves no room for Virgin Atlantic’s entry on the route.
Media reports have indicated that the BASA could be up for renewal. However, it is not fully utilised from the Indian side as slot constraints have barred Air India from expanding at Heathrow. As of this season, Air India has 17 weekly flights to London Heathrow from Delhi, while Vistara has 7. From Mumbai, Air India is the sole Indian airline operating with 14 weekly flights. This leaves room for 18 weekly frequencies to London Heathrow from Mumbai or Delhi.
Network Thoughts
The move looks anticipatory in nature as of now. The negotiations and formalisation will be post elections results in India. Going by the current statements of Indian government ministers and officials, the Indian carriers will be protected and this would mean that Air India / Vistara will get the much needed slots at Heathrow for India to agree for more rights to British carriers.
London remains one of the most popular destinations for travel from India and both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic focus on the transfer market to North America where they have a very large presence. Additionally, their partnerships with American Airlines and Delta (respectively) help offer many secondary cities in the US as part of a single itinerary. Virgin Atlantic had announced flights between Manchester and Delhi in the pandemic year. The flights never began as they were to start in October 2020. Will the airline plan for a similar route again?
NetworkThoughts 