Virgin Cargo

Two questions for the near future:-

1. With less passenger aircraft still flying, and cargo needing to be moved, could we see VS Cargo flights for sometime to come, generating useful extra funds?

2. I saw much publicity that VS250 was operating double crewed to prevent the need to drop crews Are Hong Kong, JNB, JFK and LAX doing the same? (JNB seems to return as a daylight flight rather than parking up for the day) Could we see passenger services to the far east still double crewed particularly if services arent daily.?

I doubt it. I think VS doing Cargo flights is purely a revenue mitigation venture i.e. they can make decent money on these flights absent an passenger demand/travel restrictions preventing passenger movements. I think demand for cargo has also surged specifically due to Covid-19 (PPE). I heard a stat about exports growing in China in April driven solely by PPE.

To enable VS to carry the cargo volumes that make it viable without PAX they are loading the cabins with cargo too. Once restrictions are lifted and VS want to recommence passenger flights they the whole cabin will have to revert to being PAX only with cargo space limited to the cargo hold only. VS have no cargo only planes although it could be that when they recommence pax flights they have some aircraft sitting free for the short term that they continue to use for cargo-only flights.

Regarding point 2, I imagine these quick turnarounds vs. sitting on the ground are made possible by the lifting on slot restrictions. I would think once pax flights generally resume in a meaningful way VS won't be able to maintain the quick turnaround outbound/inbound and so wouldn't double crew. The times they depart/arrive for cargo flights might also not be the most passenger friendly times.

The double crewing is so that they don't have to stay over night down route and possibly having to quarenteen etc

I remember back in the day flying on a VAC courier ticket.

Massive fare reductions - one flight I took to LAX I paid something like £200 and the pax next to me had paid nearly 10x that.

PW

Is there an obvious reason why Virgin stored all the 330's and didn't use them/aren't using them for cargo flights?
Capacity-wise there's barely nothing between the 787 and 330 (172 cubic metres v 168) and whereas BA seem to be utilising all their fleet variations from 772, 773, A350, and both the 788 and 789, Virgin seem to have cast aside their A333's in favour of A350 and B789

Is there an obvious reason why Virgin stored all the 330's and didn't use them/aren't using them for cargo flights?

I imagine it's so they only have their most fuel efficient planes (787s, A350s) operating flights therefore maximising as much profit as possible. Right now they're not operating enough flights to use the entire 787/a350 fleet so it'll be awhile till the a330s are used as any increase in operating capacity will be taken up by the remaining 787s/a350s.

Interesting to note, Virgin have returned to Chicago O'Hare, with cargo operations, having operated two flights in the past few days.

I imagine it's so they only have their most fuel efficient planes (787s, A350s) operating flights therefore maximising as much profit as possible. Right now they're not operating enough flights to use the entire 787/a350 fleet so it'll be awhile till the a330s are used as any increase in operating capacity will be taken up by the remaining 787s/a350s.

Interesting to note, Virgin have returned to Chicago O'Hare, with cargo operations, having operated two flights in the past few days.

Chicago O'Hare seems to be where parcels from the US to UK are going via ive had a few deliveries from the US over the last couple of months from all over the US and all of them have come to the UK via Chicago whereas before they would come via LAX, JFK etc so maybe Virgin have seen a gap and jumped on it