Delta Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways are celebrating a significant expansion of their trans-Atlantic partnership with the introduction of six new daily services.
Both began their summer schedule offering up to 39 return trans-Atlantic flights a day between the United Kingdom and 15 destinations across North America.
The joint schedule now includes 10 daily flights between New York and London Heathrow, with eight daily departures from New York-JFK and two departures from Newark.
Customers travelling between JFK and London Heathrow will benefit from regular evening departures from New York.
Virgin Atlantic is launching a second daily service between Los Angeles and Heathrow, complemented by significant investment on the ground with the first-ever Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse in Los Angeles due to open next month.
Combined with the Delta service launched in October 2014, the partnership will offer three daily flights from Los Angeles to London and expects to carry close to 400,000 annual passengers on the route.
Also launched was a seasonal second-daily Virgin Atlantic service between Atlanta and London Heathrow and a second service between San Francisco and London Heathrow that will operate five days a week over the summer.
The two airlines are maximising the benefits of their joint-venture partnership and increasing passenger choice by aligning schedules to best meet customer demand. This will see a transfer of operations that began in March with Delta flying one of the Newark-to-London Heathrow services previously operated by Virgin Atlantic. Virgin Atlantic will take over Delta’s Atlanta-to-Manchester service.
Further joint-venture services planned for the summer include:
• A new daily Delta service between Philadelphia and London Heathrow starting April 26.
• A new daily Delta service between New York-JFK and Manchester starting May 21.
• A new daily Virgin Atlantic service between London Heathrow and Detroit starting June.
Virgin Atlantic is also offering a series of special seasonal services this year to diverse destinations.
Since the start of the joint venture, more than five million people have travelled on its services with 10,000 people per month connecting between the two airlines last year.
The new schedule offers connecting itineraries to 215 destinations.
