If there’s one long-haul route from London that is more coveted than any other, it has to be the London Heathrow to New York route.
In 2013, some 4.2 million passengers flew in both directions between London and New York. This is more than Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami combined.
We’re not quite sure what has prompted this, but British Airways has today e-mailed large numbers of members of its Executive Club who hold blue or bronze cards offering a complimentary Silver card (which affords privileges such as access to business class check-in desks and lounges) if they book a business class return from London to New York (subject to certain booking restrictions) in the next 90 days.
Over the past few years there has been something of an industry in the development of in flight safety demonstrations that seem designed just as much for sharing on social media as they are for advising passengers of aircraft safety procedures.
The leader in this field has been Air New Zealand and the latest contribution to this genre comes from Virgin Atlantic. Here is its new safety demonstration which will be featured on aircraft from 1 March of this year.
Continue reading “Virgin Atlantic’s new safety demonstration “Trip””
Delta Airlines is to launch a direct route from London Heathrow airport to Chicago O’Hare airport from Sunday 26 October 2014.
Virgin Atlantic has today announced that it is to suspend its daily London Heathrow-Sydney service from 5 May 2014. The airline will continue to fly to Hong Kong, where the Sydney flight currently stops en-route.
Continue reading “Virgin Atlantic suspends London-Sydney route from 5 May 2014”
Virgin Atlantic and Delta have been busy putting the final touches to their transatlantic joint-venture which launches next year.
Scheduled to Boston and New York have been tweaked. Delta launches a daily flight to Seattle on 29 March 2014 and a second daily flight to Detroit on 9 June 2014.
In the most significant move to date, Delta is relocating its services from London Heathrow to Boston, New York and Seattle from Heathrow Terminal 4 to Terminal 3 from 2 April 2014.
Yesterday’s (Monday) Financial Times featured an interesting story where the Chief Executive of London Gatwick, Stewart Wingate, postulated (known in politics and the press as “kite flying”) that if a second runway for Gatwick was approved, one of the “Big Three” airline alliances could be persuaded to defect from Heathrow airport.
Is there any mileage in this?
Put simply, I don’t think so.
Following the grant of anti-trust immunity by the US Department of Transportation, Virgin Atlantic and Delta have today confirmed they will co-ordinate their schedules to operate a nine times daily shuttle service on the London Heathrow – New York (Newark & JFK) route from 30 March 2014.
It’s been over four months since Virgin Atlantic launched its short-haul operation from London Heathrow to Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Manchester and, so far, we have only anecdotal evidence to rely on to judge the performance of these routes.
As expected following the launch of a transatlantic joint venture between Delta Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, Delta has today announced that it is to operate a direct flight from London Heathrow to Seattle from 30 March 2014.
Continue reading “Delta Airlines to launch direct flight from London to Seattle from 30 March 2014”