September announcement

Can it be Manchester will be flying VS75/76 as refurbed 747 aircraft now, and all 330 flying to MCO will be moved on to smaller less full routes . y) ): I hate them PE has been ruined for me flying these cramped mini buses. But i do like to get away in the morning not mid afternoon, so not much choice. If these remain as 330 we are going to wait for 73/74 and grin and bere it. v(

I'm sure villa owners would welcome an all year round GLA-MCO service... does anybody know the loading of this route outwith of school holidays?

As GlasgowBoy says, we already have a UAL service to EWK and a US Air service to Philly... but I'm thinking a Friday service to Las Vegas would go down pretty well. Does anybody know if the 2-class A330 has the range? The which aircraft tool suggests the route is flown by Jumbos from MAN.

This winter the 330 will be doing the MAN - LAS route

I've sussed it,
Virgin are gonna use jersey as a tax haven (who hasnt ahem).
Extend the runway and offer direct flights to europe and beyond,
Rival the LHR clubhouse with proper tax free goodies.
With triple tier points .

god I'm good

Jason

This winter the 330 will be doing the MAN - LAS route

Yep likely to be something as underwhelming as this with a plug for Virgin mortgages or similar and SRB lifting up a max Clifford managed female

Virgin to "come of age" and rebrand. The shortlist is

"Taken"
"Experienced"

A search on Google News may reveal the exciting announcement.....

Or if you can't be bothered to do that, it's announced tomorrow.

Oh yes, so it is. How underwhelming (well, for those of us down south anyway...)

[preiffer]

Love it :

Google's index lists "Virgin Atlantic to launch London to Manchester Route" but a click to the link takes you to this page : embargoed.

Oooops Guardian! http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2012/aug/20/news

Found this screenshot of the news article on another site:

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7656/v ... aunchl.png

Seems like interesting times are ahead if this is all true.

Dan

Indded, seems the article may be embargoed, but not the headline. If it were significant news, you could call it a leak, but I guess in this case, it's more of an 'ooze'.

Unless of course this heralds a new dawn of short haul travel for VS, rather than just being a mad scramble to plug the BMI hole...

Not sure if this helps you:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38c6757c-eac8 ... z246q3I4HX

[preiffer]

Confusing though. They're going to use "existing spare slots" (plus the HOPE they get some additional ones - so the spares alone must be enough to run a frequent service). VS have quite often pointed to the lack of slot availability as the basis of their claim that they can't expand...

...and now they say they've been sat on spare ones?!

Read some posts on Busines Traveller http://www.businesstraveller.com/discussion/topic/VS-News?page=2 purportedly from a VS employee, which makes reference to VS starting up Short Haul, but also makes reference to new Amenity Kits, and increased transfer passengers from October due to increased flights and timing changes to / from JFK/EWR/BOM/DEL.

Is that it, some announcement !

I have a feeling that this newspaper article may be the first time LHR has heard anything about this...

Is that it, some announcement !

VS's first foray in to short haul is quite a big announcement I would say..

Well I will wait for more information, but;

What spare slots? All VS LHR slots are currently in use.

BA operate over 100 flights a week on this route, how many will VS put on?

Why hasn't anyone I know at LHR heard anything like this, I know it was a "secret" but people in the planning side of the business haven't a clue about this.


Also this could get off the ground as much as the Business class only services that VS were going to start, be the start of something successful, or a total flop.

[Darren Wheeler]

All the news articles have been pulled as they breached the embargo on it...

More info internally:

Airbus A319 aircraft
3 daily services
Flying in VS colours and will "offer an extension of the service customers know and love"
Using slots previously leased to another airline
LHR Terminal 1, MAN Terminal 3
Economy service only

FLYING CLUB
750 miles earned, 1TP earned per sector
7500 miles for a reward flight per sector

Passengers connecting on to a long haul reward flight will not have to use 7500 miles for the MAN-LHR section, these will be absorbed by VS.

BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE
If just travelling LHR-MAN-LHR then normal Economy allowance 1 x 23kgs, 1 x 6kgs
If connecting to international flight then same allowance as your entitled to for that.

Departs from MAN at 0650 1220 1750 / Departs from LHR at 0920 1610 2010
Flight numbers VS3041,2,3,4,5 & 6
Bookable today (21/08) via the Contact Centre, and 29/08 online

Thanks for the heads up StillRedHot. Hopefully, it'll work out for VS and be the first of many short haul routes.

[Darren Wheeler]

FLYING CLUB
750 miles earned, 1TP earned per sector
7500 miles for a reward flight per sector

No Blockbuster there then... Depending on cost of course.

Loving all of it but the LHR T1 bit. No Clubhouse...

Great info StillRedHot -- thanks.

I'm pleased by this and hope it is the beginining of a couple of solid domestic routes for VS.