New route announced today 20th March 2019 (São Paulo)

This one seems to have snuck up on everyone

https://twitter.com/virginatlantic/stat ... 88512?s=21

Any ideas ?

David





Thread title edited by mod now destination is official.......Nick

São Paulo has over 6000 Pizza places and Brazil is famous for Football!

São Paulo has over 6000 Pizza places and Brazil is famous for Football!

Quite a random one. Does Shai Weiss have family in Brazil or something?

Although I guess with only two competing direct flights from LHR it’s got the potential for much higher yields than DXB.

In summary: relatively recent expansion has been:

Daily (?) GRU (?) (TBC later today!)
2nd Daily BOS
Daily TLV
2nd Daily JNB
MAN-JFK going Daily
Frequency increase MAN ATL

With the only reduction being the loss of DXB and the MAN/SFO?

Feels like a real growth phase again!

Yep it’s São Paulo. And don’t forget man-lax starting up

Plus MAN-LAS going four weekly I believe?

Anyhow - on GRU, again, a bit of an odd choice but I won't deny it's nice to see some non-US growth. It's piqued my curiosity about the city I'll admit. Can't go wrong with 6,000 pizzerias.

If I recall correctly - didn't SRB make some promises around expansion to South America at the time the 787's were announced that never came to fruition?

GRU makes a lot of sense with AF/KLM and in particular the DL relationship and indeed their partnership with GOL. GOL/VS codeshare on the horizon I foresee!

Could it also be VS aiming at Norwegian again?

The power of a full 789 fleet; 4x332s and new 350s on the horizon mean a phase of growth it seems!

And don’t forget man-lax starting up

When's that happening again..?

And don’t forget man-lax starting up

When's that happening again..?

May 26th is the first flight, operating Tuesday, Friday, Sunday until Oct 25th

And don’t forget man-lax starting up

When's that happening again..?

May 26th is the first flight, operating Tuesday, Friday, Sunday until Oct 25th

Thanks Slimpy!

One potential cloud on the horizon is the current status of Jet Airways.

Unless something miraculous happens in the coming weeks, they seem likely to collapse, with rumours of unpaid staff and aircraft leases.

Only yesterday they suspended their services from Mumbai to Hong Kong and Manchester.

The impact on Virgin, if Jet were to collapse, would be the loss of a major partner bringing feed to the TATL operations at Heathrow and more recently Manchester.

I don’t know if VS’s fleet is in a better position ow (perhaps augmented by DL) to pick up some of the slack and perhaps operate rotations to DEL/BOM from LHR/MAN, but this should be considered.

It may not come to pass, but if VS are in expansion mode again this might quickly become a priority issue to address.

Brazil? That's a nuts route!

*sips coffee*


ColOrd - yes but it was Rio that was mentioned with the hope that the Olympics and World Cup would generate lots of traffic ....

I presume the 789?

I presume the 789?

Yeah, that's what the VS press release is saying

Well it's only been talked about for four years or more ... then the Brasil economy tanked and it went away, but at one time it was talked about being Rio before the Olympics as I believe VS was granted rights to fly to Brasil some time before that but until now never taken up.

We've just come back from our first visit to GRU (we went on the 'dark side')
Things I didn't know included that GRU is the major and busiest airport in South America. It's really the continent's hub.
And GRU T3 (which is International, and presumably VS will use) is quite nice - nicest terminal we saw in South America.....

So I think it makes good sense!

Peter

We've just come back from our first visit to GRU (we went on the 'dark side')
Things I didn't know included that GRU is the major and busiest airport in South America. It's really the continent's hub.
And GRU T3 (which is International, and presumably VS will use) is quite nice - nicest terminal we saw in South America.....

So I think it makes good sense!

Peter

It is quite a pleasant airport. Not convinced about São Paulo itself as a destination, but my experience was limited to hotel / taxi / office and somewhat coloured by the security advice we received. Did you spend time there - what are your thoughts?

Interesting choice of destination. Whatever the merits of Sao Paulo, it's good to see VS finally enter the South American market and hopefully this could be the first of more South American routes to come.

Plus MAN-LAS going four weekly I believe?

And an increase to Boston as well. LAX has replaced SFO it seems.

Wish they'd bring back Tokyo. No idea why they dropped that!

PJH asked about what we did in Sao Paulo. Well, we visited twice, as we wanted to go to Chile, and on BA the redemptions in First to Santiago incredibly low- partly because it's a 787 route which only has 8 First seats) .
So we went BA to Sao Paulo in First, and connected to LATAM business to Santiago (4 hr flght).
We were forced to layover on the way in Sao Paulo, and did the City Centre / Cathedral / Old town things.
On the way back we had 2 nights, as I wanted to go to D.O.M, one of the best restaurants in South America (which didn't disappoint). We stayed in Jardins, which is like a totally different City than on the way out. It's nice, refined, wealthy, and (relatively) safe. Incredible art gallery at MASP - really world class collection! We also went to Jazz and Rock clubs - another reason for wanting a stopover
Hope this helps

Peter

PJH asked about what we did in Sao Paulo. Well, we visited twice, as we wanted to go to Chile, and on BA the redemptions in First to Santiago incredibly low- partly because it's a 787 route which only has 8 First seats) .
So we went BA to Sao Paulo in First, and connected to LATAM business to Santiago (4 hr flght).
We were forced to layover on the way in Sao Paulo, and did the City Centre / Cathedral / Old town things.
On the way back we had 2 nights, as I wanted to go to D.O.M, one of the best restaurants in South America (which didn't disappoint). We stayed in Jardins, which is like a totally different City than on the way out. It's nice, refined, wealthy, and (relatively) safe. Incredible art gallery at MASP - really world class collection! We also went to Jazz and Rock clubs - another reason for wanting a stopover
Hope this helps

Peter

Thanks. We stayed in Morumbi, but I think we were taken to Jardins for a meal one evening.