V-Flyer

Given it is "NFL in Wembley" season, as is tradition VS have been ferrying players et al to and from various locations around the US, at least according to the VS source website.

One thing that makes me wonder, is why do VS not utilise the positioning flights as passenger flights?

As an example - G-VRED took the LA Chargers team back to LAX, but positioned back to LHR empty. Why not sub this aircraft into one of the VS8/24 rotations?

I suppose the NFL teams would pay for the positioning flights as well as the charters to cover the financial impact, but it just struck me as a little odd.

I suspect a couple of things here.

Firstly, why mess with the feng shui? There's already 789's coming in and out of LAX every day, running those routes comfortably and arguably more profitably as well given the increased efficiency of the 789s. Why try and change that?

I would also say, these promotions with the NFL are either done as a massive marketing exercise or at a slight loss for the sake of publicity. So sending the aircraft back empty was probably just part of the plan. to start with.

Personally, i'd be a but pissed if a solid 789 route randomly got a 346 one day when pretty much every other day its consistently 789.

All sorts of operational reasons would prevent the positioning flights being used as revenue flights I imagine.

Selling one-off one-way flights on random days probably wouldn’t be easy or practical, and then they’d have to crew them.

Interestingly (questionable), it was the longest VS flight of the day from LAX-LHR. You’d expect it to be much quicker without the weight of passengers, bags and cargo.

Those NFL teams don't travel light!