VS's Future at MAN

Well as it stands MAN-MCO is only 9 weekly next summer - I don't know what to say anymore !

I think the reduction in Orlando flights reflects the reduction in UK visitors. Gone are the days when it was affordable to go AND to stay and shop when Virgin sent 5 or 6 full jumbos a day during the summer months.

Also remember there are 1or 2 Miami flights plus the new Tampa flight but I believe Orlando as a destination has cooled over the last few years.

David

I think you're right. I'd love to see some actual data on it, but it really feels like the US has heavily dropped off as a tourist destination for Brits. All the types of families I know who would occasionally go to the US no longer do and a US holiday is seen as being very high end (we saw this in the media as well when Rishi Sunak took his family to California last summer - I doubt they'd have blinked an eyelid if a politician did that 20 years ago). Dubai or going 5 star in Turkey seem to have replaced it.

[mitchja]

I don't think the US as whole has dropped off much in terms of tourism. I just think a lot of Brits have woken up a bit now to other destinations in the US outside of Orlando.

The other problem with Orlando is that's it's always been very seasonal.

It's also like many things in life now; people's travel habits have evolved. Tourists want more premium holiday experience when they do travel now and unfortunately places like Orlando have not kept up with that.

South Florida seems very popular now and it's year-round unlike Orlando as well. Look at Delta and how many flights they now op to both MIA and FLL every day from ATL for example. They also use premium cabin heavy 757s on these routes which have 20 J seats and certainly on the FLL route I've never yet seen a flight that's not op'ed full. FLL flights are often 1 flight every hour!

Maybe VS need to look further south of MCO? A MAN>MIA flight perhaps? I still think VS would do well flying to FLL as well though LHR would make more sense than MAN for that one.

Fully agree James which makes it more important than ever for the Man-Atl flight to go back to late morning. This gives a much better chance of flying on to other parts like New Orleans or Nashville and other destinations further west. I remember a flight in the past when it was Delta operated a large group of guys flying on to Myrtle Beach for a golf break.

Showing my age here but I remember flying to Miami direct with AA in the 90’s. VS might be better going back to just 1 MCO flight a day. That way they would have an aircraft spare to send to MIA or TPA or LAX. Delta are starting AMS from TPA in October so demand must be there. But it’s just frustrating how VS announcing things and then quietly pull the plug. How can we book with confidence. I believe the issue with the ATL flight is the aircraft used to swop with the LHR flight in ATL when they were both A330’s. Now the LHR flight is the A350 VS don’t have that option anymore. So they rotate in JFK, MCO and BGI this is due to the 2 hour turn time rule. I fly VS109/110 the most so I feel your pain.

I’m finding myself in agreement with everyone here.

Yes, Florida is not as good value for money as it once was. Partly due to prices going up all round, partly due to the weak pound. And when the USD is strong, you naturally start to enquire what else you can get for your money, which is one reason why we’ve been to the Caribbean twice in the last couple of years instead of making up for COVID cancelling our planned holiday to Florida in 2020.

I also agree that some Brits have woken up to the fact there’s more to the US and Florida in particular. Besides rides coming and going at the parks and certain parks disappearing to be replaced by new ones, there are other parts of Orlando that have barely changed since I first went in the 1990s. I am also now of an age where a week or so on the West Coast with the parks being bypassed would not bother me at all - been there and done it (mostly) and have had the T-shirts.

And yes, the MAN-ATL flight needs retiming to make the most of the route’s potential which is connecting on to DL flights elsewhere. I doubt many end their journeys in Atlanta.

As for MAN-MCO currently being 9 per week next summer, I seem to recall it was round that figure as recently as a decade ago, with the second aircraft being used to fly to LAS and BGI on the other days. However, given the 440+ seats on those 747s compared to A330/A350s, no more Thomas Cook and TUI being the only other leisure airlinw to fly to Florida, it’s a drop in capacity. Don’t forget Aer Lingus too.

[mitchja]

Whilst TUI do fly to Florida do remember they actually fly to MLB though which is at least a 90min drive to/from the Orlando area. How they still get away with their website saying 'flights to Orlando' is anyone's guess?

At least EI do fly to MCO.

Whilst TUI do fly to Florida do remember they actually fly to MLB though which is at least a 90min drive to/from the Orlando area. How they still get away with their website saying 'flights to Orlando' is anyone's guess?

At least EI do fly to MCO.

Ryanair have been getting away with that stunt for years in all fairness.

Given the majority of those on the TUI flights to MLB are likely on TUI package holidays, it’s probably not as much of a deal-breaker for them, especially if it’s cheaper overall. Also seem to recall one reason for flying to MLB was to better serve those on cruise packages, but could be wrong.

Yeah the cruise market was a big decider in that decision of Tui to swap out of Sanford and into Melbourne.

[mitchja]

Probably somewhat related but DL have just announced they they will now fly MCO>LHR x4 per week from October 26th 2024 to March 29th 2025.

Yes I did see that DL are dropping the LAX -LHR flight so will have slots spare. They have quite a few flights from MCO so would be a good connection point. I just booked to go to TPA in the Virgin sale and the best connection time I could get was 3H 40 mins. The sooner VS move VS109 back to 10:30 the better.

Hi All, Does anyone know if VS75 is operating on a Monday any longer, my family and i are booked on this service on 19th August historically it was operated using A333 aircraft but the seating plan is of a A35K which is VS73 profile ! my preference is A35K as i've done a lot of work on the XWB for RR and this is my 1st possible time to hear it in full load cycle
Thanks in advance
Cheers
Waggie

Yes I did see that DL are dropping the LAX -LHR flight so will have slots spare. They have quite a few flights from MCO so would be a good connection point. I just booked to go to TPA in the Virgin sale and the best connection time I could get was 3H 40 mins. The sooner VS move VS109 back to 10:30 the better.

I did wonder whether the DL LHR-MCO flight was instead of a VS turn or in addition to their offerings. Think they also serve AMS from MCO.

As for your TPA connection, without knowing where you’re going to I would just drive from MCO instead of hanging round that long.

Yes I did see that DL are dropping the LAX -LHR flight so will have slots spare. They have quite a few flights from MCO so would be a good connection point. I just booked to go to TPA in the Virgin sale and the best connection time I could get was 3H 40 mins. The sooner VS move VS109 back to 10:30 the better.

I did wonder whether the DL LHR-MCO flight was instead of a VS turn or in addition to their offerings. Think they also serve AMS from MCO.

As for your TPA connection, without knowing where you’re going to I would just drive from MCO instead of hanging round that long.

I don't drive unfortunate so don't have that as an option, But I have changed my flights to SRQ as that's where I'm staying in Sarasota. DL have a habit of changing the domestic schedule for the autumn and winter so my 3 hours 40 mins connection may get reduced. But again if VS109 left at 10:30 like it always used to I could catch the 16:30 flight to SRQ. Basically VS has dropped the ball and missed a wave of DL connections.

What would need to happen for the MAN-ATL service to be re-timed?

It would be interesting if some of the new routes were created by redeployment of capacity (eg from MCO to MIA). I’m not sure how that would play out. Surely India from MAN has to be on the radar, that market is already large and is only going one way as the Indian economy grows.

IndiGo have announced MAN and AMS as their first long-haul destinations from India. No further details yet, but this article is suggesting DEL 3x weekly from July…

https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/air/ind ... haul-debut

Some of you may remember the briefly-operated MAN-BOM route with Jet Airways before they went bust and passengers using MAN to connect onto VS flights to the US.

More pertinently, VS announced MAN-DEL and MAN-BOM a few years ago but never operated a single flight. It goes to show how not only is the real growth lately from MAN is by going east, others will operate these routes if VS can’t/won’t operate them.

That said, VS do partner with IndiGo on those connecting off VS flights to domestic India flights, so who knows whether they’ll seek to extend the partnership to this new route.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we saw a MAN - DEL in 2026 for VS. That being said, the MAN - ISB flight a few years ago wasn’t really a resounding success

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we saw a MAN - DEL in 2026 for VS. That being said, the MAN - ISB flight a few years ago wasn’t really a resounding success

MAN-ISB was opportunistic given the US was closed at the time and PK being banned from operating to the UK and EU. I expect PK to eventually return.

As many people have alluded to VS have announce many routes in recent years and had to postpone or cancelled them altogether from both LHR and MAN. The Trent 1000 issues has hit VS hard and any spare aircraft are used to cover for grounded 787’s. In an ideal world we would have a route to Asia and the U.S West Coast from MAN. What we might see happen in the future is the 5 low J A350’s being based at MAN. As these A350’s were originally designed for LGW/MAN.

This would however reduce the reward availability for some of us in Upper Class. So that plan has pro’s and con’s. I believe the JFK route is getting the A350 but the ATL flight is not which I think is sensible as both Premium and Upper Class is always full whenever I fly on VS109.

[mitchja]

ATL is getting an A339 several times a month now. I flew back on an A339 in January. Hopefully that's going to increase as more A333's are retired.

I believe loads are still pretty healthy on the MAN>ATL route meaning the A333/A339 is still the right A/C for that route.