Virgin to launch Heathrow – Vancouver flights
06.11.11
Virgin Atlantic will enter the Canadian market next summer with scheduled non-stop direct flights between Heathrow Airport and Vancouver, the Vancouver Sun reports today. The new service will run four times a week from May 24 to October 25, but may be expanded to a year service at a future date.
Vancouver will be the only Canadian destination for the UK based airline, which offered a brief service to Toronto over a decade ago. That route was cancelled following the 9/11 terrorist attack in the US hit demand for transatlantic flights.
Steve Ridgway, CEO at Virgin Atlantic Airways, said in an interview: ‘We’ll start with four [flights a week] and see how it builds up. We’re always looking for opportunities to grow [and] we want a market with a strong business component and a strong leisure component.’ He said that Vancouver is a market Virgin has eyed for years, and that it is an attractive destination for UK travellers, adding ‘[It] will be seasonal, but we’d like to make it year-round. We are also looking to persuade Canadian business travellers going to London.’
The new service will be operated using an Airbus A340-300 and will increase capacity from Heathrow Airport to Vancouver by around 10 per cent. BA and Air Canada also operate flights on the route. Virgin's flights will be on sale from December 1.
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