Virgin Atlantic’s “Little Red” flights from London Heathrow to Aberdeen and Edinburgh will end on Saturday 26 September 2015.
These flights were operated with slots forfeited by British Airways as a consequence of the takeover by its parent company, International Airlines Group, of bmi.
The trustee appointed to oversee the release of these slots did re-advertise them. The deadline for applications was 2 April 2015.
In the absence of any announcement to the contrary, we can only deduce that no bidder has come forward. This means that the slots will revert back to British Airways.
It also cannot be a co-incidence that BA has just announced an additional seven flights a week from Sunday 25 October 2015 to Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam, Milan–Malpensa airport, Zurich, Geneva, Newcastle and Edinburgh. In addition, BA will add an additional four flights a week to Manchester.
Finally, it’s worth noting that holders of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles can redeem their miles for Virgin Little Red flights from 7,500 miles.
Flying Club members can also earn bonus miles on Little Red flights. There’s more on the Virgin Atlantic website..
Virgin Atlantic has long been known for its distinctive, if relatively few in number, Clubhouse lounges. The flagship being of course its London Heathrow Clubhouse, with other Clubhouses in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Washington.
One notable absentee has been Los Angeles, in spite of it being one of Virgin Atlantic’s most important routes after New York.
Today Virgin Atlantic has opened a new Clubhouse at Terminal 2. The lounge has been designed by Slade Architecture who also worked on the airline’s Newark and JFK clubhouses.
Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse Los AngelesVirgin Atlantic Clubhouse Los Angeles
The Los Angeles clubhouse offers views of the Hollywood Hills. The colour palette is relatively toned down compared to other Virgin lounges.
As per other Virgin Clubhouses the lounge offers complimentary drinks from the bar and a pre-flight dining menu, with the Los Angeles lounge offering dishes from Hinoki & The Bird.
Virgin Atlantic flies to Los Angeles twice daily, with an additional codeshare flight operated by Delta. It is a route with strong competition. Air New Zealand flies to Auckland via Los Angeles daily. American Airlines and British Airways also fly the route twice daily, with American Airlines offering its latest Boeing 777-300 aircraft and British Airways flying its A380 twice daily.
The winding down of Virgin Atlantic’s short-lived UK domestic operation “Little Red” has started with the London Heathrow – Manchester now suspended, some two years after it first launched.
Virgin’s “Little Red” operation will continue to fly from London Heathrow to Aberdeen and Edinburgh three and six times daily until Saturday 26 September 2015.
It’s also worth adding that holders of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles can redeem their miles for Virgin Little Red flights from 7,500 miles. Flying Club members can also earn bonus miles on Little Red flights. There’s more on the Virgin Atlantic website.
What will happen to the “Little Red” Heathrow slots?
Some of the slots used by Little Red were from Virgin Atlantic’s existing slot portfolio, so some will revert back to Virgin Atlantic.
Many of the slots (at least nine) were forfeited by British Airways as a consequence of the acquisition of bmi by its parent company, International Airlines Group.
The trustee appointed to oversee the release of slots has re-advertised the slots. The deadline for applications is 2 April 2015.
If there is no bidder, the slots will revert back to British Airways.
There are no obvious candidates for the slots. However, a potential candidate would be easyJet if it felt inclined to launch flights at Heathrow to support its increased targeting of the business market.
British Airways Concorde
We recently browsed the archives of BBC Radio 4’s long running series “Desert Island Discs” and found two recordings from over 20 years ago, featuring two giants of aviation.
The first is Lord King, the former Chairman of British Airways who, together with Colin Marshall, oversaw the transition of BA from a nationalised industry to the “World’s Favourite Airline”. The second is Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic.
The interview with Lord King was first broadcast on 19 April 1991. The interview with Sir Richard Branson was first broadcast 9 June 1989. Both were interviewed by Sue Lawley.
Whilst the interview Lord King covers much of his time at British Airways, the interview with Sir Richard Branson barely touches on Virgin Atlantic – the main focus being Virgin Records which at the time was owned by Virgin. At the time Virgin Atlantic was just five years’ old. Interestingly, the relationship between the two airlines, which was to later sour significantly, isn’t mentioned in either interview.
The contrasting styles of Lord King and Sir Richard Branson are very much evident in the interviews.
That said, whilst Lord King does come across as a little cold at first he does warm up later into the interview. Furthermore, whilst Lord King’s style is seen as very much from a different era of business, so much so that Financial Times journalist Lucy Kellaway once wrote of his “bombastic rudeness” (legend has it that Lord King personally ordered the removal of BA advertising from the Financial Times after he took exception to a profile of him written by the paper), it is clear he has a genuine passion for business.
Furthermore, there is little Lord King says in the interview that many current aviation CEOs of today (Willie Walsh of International Airlines Group or Richard Anderson of Delta) would disagree with, particularly the references to the need for rational decision making and that sometimes painful decisions have to be made in the long term interests of the company.
Lord King also complains about government regulation and the barriers to true consolidation in the industry – two issues which are very much alive today.
As far as music choices go, neither interviews yield little surprises. The Flower Duet from Lakmé, famous for its use in many BA ads, features in Lord King’s choices. Many famous tracks from the Virgin Records back catalogue feature in Sir Richard Branson’s choices.
You can listen to the Lord King interview here and the Sir Richard Branson here.
Sadly, there was one other programme we would have loved to have covered here. That is an interview with the late Alan Whicker from 1967 but, alas, there is no audio online.
At the time, we speculated that whilst this was a novel use of the promoted tweet facility, it might not be the game changer the extensive media coverage it generated suggested.
In, perhaps, proof of the point, it has taken over a year for another promoted tweet against an airline to catch our attention.
This time it is Virgin Atlantic that is the target of a passenger’s ire.
As has been widely reported around the world today, a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 operating as flight VS43 bound for Las Vegas airport returned to London Gatwick after part of its landing gear failed to retract properly after take-off.
The aircraft made what Virgin Atlantic referred to as a non-standard landing after dumping fuel to reduce the landing weight of the aircraft. The aircraft landed safely at London Gatwick without the entirety of its landing gear fully extended. The aircraft remained on the runway at London Gatwick and passengers were safely escorted from the aircraft.
The incident was covered live in the UK on the BBC News channel and Sky News. Perhaps in part due to it being a relatively quiet period for news and recent aviation incidents, the incident attracted quite sensational coverage around the world (let’s not get started on CNN’s abominal coverage of Air Asia flight QZ8501!). The unfolding nature of the story lends itself to coverage on the rolling news channels and tales of instant heroism and, in their eyes, narrowly averted disaster, also play well in tabloid media.
Whilst this was no trivial incident and it must have been a source of distress for some passengers, considerable comfort should be taken from the fact that the crew were clearly well trained and prepared to handle such an incident.
As is customary for this time of year, many of the world’s airlines have produced films and images to share the spirit of the Christmas / Festive / Holiday (delete as appropriate!) season and mark the end of a year of travelling in 2014.
Here are a few films and images that caught our attention. A clear leitmotif is what airlines are fundamentally about: bringing people together.
Delta Air Lines has today announced the opening of a new arrivals lounge for eligible passengers at London Heathrow Terminal 3.
This is a sign of Delta’s continued investment in the London Heathrow market.
The arrivals lounge is located in arrivals hall of Terminal 3.
Delta BusinessElite passengers and SkyMiles Diamond and Platinum Medallion members arriving from the United States have access to the lounge.
The lounge features 11 shower suites and clothes press and shoe shine services.
Breakfast includes Starbucks Coffee, fresh fruit, pastries, yoghurt and cereals and a prepared to order a la carte menu. Wi-Fi is available throughout the lounge, plus a business centre and a selection of the day’s newspapers.
Virgin Atlantic commenced Boeing 787 passenger flights today (Tuesday 28 October) with its inaugural flight to Boston.
Flight VS11 departed London Heathrow for Boston shortly after its scheduled departure time of 17:35. Virgin also operated a test flight from London Gatwick to Atlanta on Friday 24 October, which is pictured below.
Whilst today marks the official launch of passenger flights for the Boeing 787, according to Airline Route the 787 will not operate from 31 October to 14 November to allow for crew familiarisation flights.
The replacement of quad-engine Boeing 747s and Airbus A340s at London Heathrow with the twin-engine Boeing 787 is cited as a significant step in restoring Virgin Atlantic to profitability, together with its nascent transatlantic joint-venture with Delta Airlines.
After much press speculation and claims by rivals about poor load factors, Virgin Atlantic has today confirmed it is to close its “Little Red” short-haul operation from London Heathrow.
Flights between London and Manchester will cease on 28 March 2015.
Flights between London and Aberdeen and Edinburgh will cease on 26 September 2015.
