Virgin Atlantic expands India ops with new flights

Witnessing huge demand in the strong Indian aviation market, British carrier Virgin Atlantic has said that it will start an additional daily flight connecting Mumbai and London in October, as well as look to expand its codeshare partnership with IndiGo. Currently, Virgin Atlantic operates two daily flights to London Heathrow from Delhi and one each from Mumbai and Bengaluru. The London-Bengaluru services started on March 31. Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss said India is the third largest market for the airline after North America and the Caribbean. From 2025, Virgin Atlantic will offer over one million seats to India, a capacity growth of 350 per cent since 2019. At present, the airline operates around 10 per cent of its total capacity in India. The carrier will have a total of 45 planes, including B787s and A350s, by the end of this year, as per a report.