Virgin Atlantic announces second Tel Aviv-Heathrow route as flights resume
Airlines including Virgin and Ryanair are slowly bringing flights back online as the coronavirus lockdown conditions start to lift.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDSA Virgin Atlantic plane prepares for its flight to Ben-Gurion Airport from Heathrow in London.(photo credit: OFER LEVY)
Virgin Atlantic announced plans to double the capacity on its recently launched Tel Aviv to London Heathrow route, bringing the service online slowly over the next year as the restrictions caused by the coronavirus clear.The company launched its daily Tel Aviv-London route in September 2019, with the British billionaire businessman and Virgin Atlantic chairman Sir Richard Branson saying at the time: "I’m sure we’ll be investing much more in the years to come.”That route is set to come back on track as soon as restrictions are lifted, with passenger capacity slowly being increased across the latter half of the year. Virgin intends to launch the second daily service in March 2021, adding over 180,000 seats a year.The flights, which will utilize the company's modern fleet of twin-engine A330-300s, B787-9s and A350-1000s offering Upper, Premium and Economy class seats, will allow seamless connections from Heathrow on to American destinations including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta.Nick Bettles, Commercial Manager, Israel at Virgin Atlantic commented: “The global Covid-19 pandemic has affected the entire aviation industry with lower demand and travel restrictions on many routes. However, our commitment to the Israeli market continues. We plan to restart our daily Tel Aviv Ben-Gurion-London Heathrow flight using our iconic 787 aircraft. What’s more, due to the success of the route, we’ll be adding a second daily service from March 2021. With this additional flight we’ll provide over 360,000 seats between the two cities, allowing more customers to experience our world class product.”The first daily flight will depart Tel Aviv at 7:20 a.m., arriving into London Heathrow at 11:00 a.m., and will return departing London Heathrow at 10:30 p.m. and arriving into Tel Aviv at 5:35 a.m.The second will depart Tel Aviv at 5:20 p.m., arriving into London Heathrow at 9:00 p.m., with the return flight departing London Heathrow at 08.45 and arriving into Tel Aviv at 3:50p.m.Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer, Virgin Atlantic commented: “As the Covid-19 crisis stabilizes and demand gradually returns, we are looking forward to welcoming our customers back and flying them safely to their favorite destinations. We have taken the opportunity to pause, reflect and reshape our 2021 flying program looking at efficiencies in our fleet and connectivity across our network, to ensure it is fit for the future, flying to the destinations we know our customers love to fly.“We’re delighted that our popular Tel Aviv service, which launched in September 2019, will now increase to double daily, whilst regional flying from Manchester, Glasgow and Belfast will continue to play an important part in offering choice to customers and connecting UK travelers to Orlando, Barbados, New York and Los Angeles.”Ryanair also announced a resumption of part of its schedule today, with two fifths of its usual services taking to the air from the beginning of July. Passengers will be asked to wear masks and have their temperature taken before boarding, the Telegraph has reported, and will also be required in July and August to fill in forms detailing their destination address and length of their planned stay, information which will be passed on to EU governments to monitor quarantine regulations.
"Ryanair is working with EU Governments to try to keep some minimum flight links open for emergency reasons, even though the passenger loads on these flights is very low," the company said in a statement.The relaunch means that the Irish airline will be bringing more than 1,000 daily flights into service as it seeks to mitigate some of the financial fallout from the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the virus. The flights will include a number of routes from Tel Aviv across Europe, including to Rome, Paphos, Vilnius, Athens, Budapest and Sophia.However, it has no plans to fly more than 50 percent of its former schedule between July and September, as it expects demand to remain subdued.“For the full year ended March 2021, Ryanair now expects to carry less than 100m passengers, more than 35 per cent below its original 154m target,” the company said.The aviation industry was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown. Although cargo flights have continued in order to keep goods' supply lines flowing, passenger flights all but came to a halt.In mid-April Virgin boss Richard Branson came under fire from politicians and campaigners alike, after Virgin Group made a plea for a UK bailout for Virgin Atlantic the to tune of £500 m. ($616 m.) to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus.Luke Hildyard, of the High Pay Centre, said: “At a time when the government is struggling to fund the National Health Service and support low and middle income earners hit by the economic shutdown, it would be unthinkable to commit hundreds of millions of pounds to an effective bailout for billionaire Richard Branson,” The Week reported.Campaigners pointed out that Branson enjoys an estimated $5.2 b. personal fortune, yet has paid no personal income tax since moving to the tax-free British Virgin Islands 14 years ago.Approximately 8,000 Virgin Atlantic staff members were placed on extended leave or asked to take voluntary redundancy as the company strove to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic.
