Virgin Atlantic to start second daily Mumbai-London flight

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Virgin Atlantic has revealed plans to enhance its Mumbai-London (Heathrow) route by introducing a second daily direct flight, set to begin operations on October 27. This announcement follows observations of a significant increase in demand from Indian travellers heading to the UK capital.

Juha Jarvinen, chief commercial officer of Virgin Atlantic said, "The number of passengers travelling to the UK from Mumbai has substantially increased. A thousand people travel daily to the UK from Mumbai. This number will be much higher as we are not counting the connecting flights. This is the number of passengers that fly from Mumbai to the UK directly on a unidirectional journey." Jarvinen added, "On October 27, Virgin Atlantic will fly its second first flight from Mumbai to the UK, raising the total number of daily flights from one to two."

"Virgin Atlantic's newest aircraft, the Airbus A350-1000, will serve this route, providing passengers with enhanced comfort and modern amenities," he said. In comparison, Air India currently operates the route with the A350-900 variant.

He also disclosed that by 2030, the airline plans to add two more destinations in India from which to operate. Amritsar, Ahmadabad, Hyderabad and Goa are among the locations on the shortlist from which the two new destinations will be selected, the CCO disclosed. "In the past 12 months, the unidirectional traffic from India to the UK has increased by 350% and 6,50,000 UK visas have been issued by the Indian authorities in the past 12 months which is the highest according to historical data," he said. The plans to start a route to Toronto, Canada by March 2025 were also disclosed by the CCO.