Virgin to scrap Little Red

Virgin Atlantic will scrap its domestic operation Little Red next year, less than two years after its launch.

Daily services between London Heathrow and Manchester will continue until the end of March 2015, while flights between London Heathrow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen will continue throughout summer 2015, ending in September 2015.

A spokeswoman for Virgin said it was hard to put a figure on the job impact of the move.

Virgin Atlantic does not directly employ any pilots or cabin crew in relation to the Little Red Service, but instead Aer Lingus provides both of these under a wet-lease arrangements.

"In the case of the pilots, they will return to Aer Lingus operations. In the case of the crew, we will be offering them roles on our long haul operation when these services end," she said.

She said almost all airport staff are provided by ground handlers, Swissport and dnata.

"There are approximately 140 airport staff working on the Little Red operation but these not all are dedicated roles, as they work on other airline operations day to day," added the spokeswoman.

The domestic service was launched in March 2013 following British Airways’ takeover of bmi.

Virgin said it wanted to give consumers an alternative on routes where BA had a monopoly.

But it said demand has been predominantly from point to point customers rather than connecting traffic, so it had not been able to ‘make a positive contribution’ to Virgin Atlantic’s network.

"High levels of connections onto Virgin Atlantic’s long haul network have always been important to the success of Little Red," it said.

Chief executive Craig Kreeger said: "It was always a huge challenge on behalf of the consumer, as the totally inadequate number of slots made available by the European Commission did not deliver close to BA’s network position, even when supplemented by our own slots to fly between Heathrow and Manchester. The time lag between the takeover of bmi and our entering the market also meant Little Red initially faced an uphill battle to win recognition and convert customers to its services.

"While this challenged environment meant Little Red ultimately did not deliver the results we had hoped, this certainly will not dampen our enthusiasm to try new things in the future. We have always fought for what we believe is best for our customers and we will continue to do so.

"We’re very grateful for all of the support and goodwill shown to Little Red in Scotland and Manchester, where we received a warm welcome. I would also like to personally thank the Little Red team who have been fantastic ambassadors providing exceptionally high levels of customer service. We look forward to continuing to work with the Little Red cabin crew as we will be offering them roles on our long haul operation when these services end."

President Sir Richard Branson reassured customers that it should continue to book Little Red flights.

The decision on the airline’s short haul carrier follows a major review of Virgin Atlantic’s flight network, where it decided to scrap four long-haul routes – Tokyo, Mumbai, Vancouver and Cape Town.

The slots at Heathrow, granted to Virgin Atlantic for Little Red, will revert to BA unless another airline applies to take over the routes.