VS Previous Destinations

I was wondering about previous Virgin Atlantic destinations. I have:

Athens
Toronto
Kingston
Nassau
San Juan
Nairobi
Mauritius
Port Harcourt
Accra (from later this month)

Have I missed anywhere?

Nassau?

Didn't there used to be a flight LTn-DUB as well?

Something about a dutch flight as well - can't remember, but it wasn't AMS...

They used to fly to Mumbai (bombay/BOM) and Delhi - are they both still operating?

With Concorde RIP adding Nassau and LTN-DUB I think that's them all for Virgin Atlantic.

There was Virgin Sun charter airline for a little while

[Darren Wheeler]

Wasn't Athens Virgin Express?

[Nottingham Nick]

Didn't Virgin Atlantic do a route to Maastricht, some years ago for some reason which escapes me?

Nick

Wasn't Athens Virgin Express?

Virgin Atlantic flew an A320 to Athens. G-OUZO

Virgin Express operated B737's, but did also fly to Athens (maybe not at same time?)
Also was based out of Brussels, with only one route from LHR (to Brussels!)

Didn't they also do a service to Puerto Rico at some point?

Thanks

[Darren Wheeler]

Didn't they also do a service to Puerto Rico at some point?

Thanks

Yes, San Juan for just one season.

On a related note what is happening with the vacant Accra slots?

Wasn't Athens Virgin Express?

Virgin Atlantic flew an A320 to Athens. G-OUZO

And they also had G-VATH, which was a 321 that operated for a very short while before ATH was stopped post 9/11.

IIRC the Athens route was operated in conjunction with a greek carrier whose name escapes me. Something like SEAA.

Technically the Virgin Sun routes were also VS routes. They were flown by VS flightdeck crew.

[honey lamb]

Didn't they also do a few weeks one winter to Lyon (or somewhere similar in France) while they were slot-sitting? IIRC you couldn't claim miles or TPs on that route. A few VFers were rather disappointed about the latter as they saw it as a European SIN-KUL run. :w

Virgin also flew to Maastricht, an explanation of the route's purpose is given here:

Shortly after launching the Newark service in June 1984, Branson devised a route from Gatwick to the Dutch city of Maastricht. This was a classic 'no-frills' operation that predated FR, U2 etc by a decade. The Maastricht connection was hatched to help fill Virgin's Gatwick-Newark service, particularly during the lean winter months when demand was at the lowest. During the winter there was over capacity on the market between the UK and the US and all airlines were chasing customers with rock bottom fares. Yet travellers in continental Europe had little access to cheap transatlantic flights, so Virgin Atlantic Flight 200 connected with the LGW-NEW service, to feed the route with traffic to and from the continent. Maastricht was ideally located at the south-east corners of Holland, for travellers from Belgium and West Germany.

The idea was that on quiet days, the flight would be operated by the Vickers Viscount, which was owned by British Air Ferries (BAF). VS entered into a damp lease with BAF – the pilots were from the latter and the cabin crew were from VS.

Branson had grand ambitions for the Maastricht link. There was enough leeway built into the 747 schedule to allow, if demand was sufficient, for the Jumbo inbound from New York to continue on from Gatwick to Maastricht. It never did.

The Gatwick-Maastricht flight was not restricted to transatlantic passengers. For the first time, British travellers had a low-cost option to fly to the continent at a flat fare of £19 each way. It could have precipitated a low-cost revolution in the skies – yet after five years of under-marketing and underperformance, by which time VS had changed from a back-packers' airline to the airline it is today, the Maastricht service was quietly dropped.

Interestingly, Branson makes no reference to this chapter in his autobiography or in Virgin's official history.

Virgin Atlantic never flew from to/from Dublin; this was Virgin Express – the Belgian airline – who failed to conquer Ryanair's hold over Dublin. The VS Viscount was probably operating another charter for BAF when it was seen at Dublin.

Virgin also flew to Maastricht, an explanation of the route's purpose is given here:

Virgin Atlantic never flew from to/from Dublin; this was Virgin Express – the Belgian airline – who failed to conquer Ryanair's hold over Dublin. The VS Viscount was probably operating another charter for BAF when it was seen at Dublin.

The last bit is there isn't correct at all. VS had a partnership with Cityjet and did fly from Dublin. This [url=http://www.airliners.net/photo/923557/L/[url] shows that they did!

I have a circa 1988 VS KID packback upstairs in the loft- the one with all the destinations written on it. KUL is on there but IIRC this was actually just a codeshare with MAS.

I thought Virgin Sun was great! I only took one trip - it was to Chania in Crete on 28th August 2001. The crew were so much fun and the announcements from the cockpit had me in hysterics.

The return flight, a fortnight later, was fun too. But between leaving Crete and landing at LGW, the world had changed...

The return flight, a fortnight later, was fun too. But between leaving Crete and landing at LGW, the world had changed...

You flew home on 11/09/01 :0

by nkp85uk » 16 Sep 2013, 17:22

LetThereBeFlight wrote:
The return flight, a fortnight later, was fun too. But between leaving Crete and landing at LGW, the world had changed...


You flew home on 11/09/01


Yes it made me pause, reflect and feel a shiver go down my spine.

Indeed, did fly home on 11 September 2001. The whole series of terrible events occurred whilst we were in the air.

On landing at LGW, we pulled off the runway and just sat there. We were sitting about two thirds of the way down the plane. As we waited for what was over an hour, the captain told us something along the lines of the delay was because we had to wait for a stand and that an 'incident' was preventing other planes from departing.

Then, as PAX turned on their phones, news (albeit sketchy) started to spread along the aircraft.

Along with the PAX on several other aircraft, we eventually disembarked via stairs directly on to the tarmac. I’ve never seen anything like it: There were hundreds of people standing around waiting for buses to the terminal. There were CC and pilots in visible distress. And the armed security presence was considerable and extremely visible. It was an almost surreal experience.

When I finally got in the car to head home, I can honestly say that I’d never been so glad to leave an airport before. Or since.

Thank you for sharing that LetThereBeFlight , particularly as once again the anniversary brings it all back to mind.