Virgin confirms bid for London-Scotland flights
Virgin Atlantic has bid to fly multiple daily flights between London Heathrow and Scotland.
It has confirmed that it has submitted an application to operate the 12 daily slot-pairs at Heathrow between Edinburgh and Aberdeen which IAG must surrender following its takeover of bmi earlier this year.
It says it wants to fill the gap after BA reduces the total number of daily flights between Aberdeen and Heathrow by nearly one third, and by a quarter between Edinburgh and Heathrow.
Virgin chief executive Steve Ridgway is in Scotland this week meeting with First Minister Alex Salmond and other political party leaders to outline the airline’s plans for extending its Scottish operation.
Speaking ahead of those meetings, Ridgway said: "At least 1.8 million Scottish passengers, equivalent to a third of the population, have been left without a choice on these routes since IAG’s takeover of bmi.
"As a monopoly operator, BA has the opportunity, the incentive and the means to increase fares and reduce the number of flights available.
"As we shook up the status-quo in long haul travel nearly 30 years ago, we’re now doing all we can to have the same decisive impact on the short haul market."
It said flights to and from Scotland would help Scottish passengers connect to long haul routes including New York, Vancouver, Sydney and Mumbai.
Virgin Atlantic already operates seasonally between Glasgow and Orlando.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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