Courtesy: Virgin Atlantic 

Virgin Atlantic formally celebrated the launch of UK domestic Little Red services last Monday 8th April with a launch party taking place in Edinburgh. Little Red operates 26 daily flights from Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Manchester to London Heathrow codesharing with Air New Zealand, Cyprus Airways, Singapore Airlines and South African Airways and connecting with a total of 30 airlines.

Sir Richard Branson said “Today marks the start of an exciting new chapter in Virgin Atlantic’s history. Our product, service & flair are known throughout the world, and we’re thrilled to be bringing that to domestic flying.

Virgin Atlantic Little Red is the next step on our exciting journey, allowing us to offer a more connected network which will deliver sustained & effective competition at home and around the world.

We’re really looking forward to welcoming on board millions of passengers between Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh & Aberdeen & to restoring consumer choice on these routes.”

Virgin Atlantic CEO Craig Kreeger said The Heathrow-Edinburgh route is key to Little Red’s strategy to provide strong & effective competition – it is the busiest UK air route with Edinburgh being a thriving financial centre & the seat of the Scottish government.

Alongside bringing revenue into Scotland, our Little Red service is all about connectivity to the rest of the world. Virgin Atlantic flies to over 30 destinations around the globe and passengers can now start their journey with us even closer to home.

We have seen impressive numbers of connecting journeys being booked through to places such as Tokyo and New York, demonstrating our customers are just as excited about Little Red as we are. We’re confident our seamless terminal connections and highly-rated in-flight service will appeal to all.”

Virgin Atlantic Little Red operates a fleet of four Airbus A320s wet-leased from Aer Lingus creating 375 jobs including 130 in Scotland, and expects to generate £75 million for the Scottish economy.
Irish Aviation Research Institute © 11th April 2013 All Rights Reserved.