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| Picture: Courtesy of Virgin Atlantic |
Virgin Atlantic has unveiled ‘Little Red’ to operate UK domestic routes from London Heathrow to Manchester four times daily from 31st March followed by Edinburgh six times daily on 5th April and Aberdeen three times daily on 9th April, operating a total of 26 daily flights.
As part of the Little Red service, Virgin Atlantic will offer customers free 23kg luggage check-ins, pre-assigned seats, complementary snacks and drinks, and hot breakfasts for morning flights. Services will operate from London Heathrow Terminal 1 connecting onto Virgin Atlantic’s International route network from Terminal 3.
The launch of the domestic services was announced last November after the carrier won 12 slot pairs sold by the IAG Group following the acquisition of BMI Airlines by British Airways.
The airline has agreed a number of brand partnerships, including with crisp brand Tyrrells for the provision of special edition “Plane Crisps” made with miniature potatoes. It has also signed a deal with soft drinks company AG Barr to provide Irn Bru on its Scottish services.
Virgin Atlantic’s founder and president Sir Richard Branson said “Virgin Atlantic has been on an incredible journey since we started with a single plane 29 years ago. Little Red represents the next step on that journey as we go head to head with British Airways to provide domestic flights that deliver Virgin Atlantic’s rock and roll spirit as well as real value for money. The European Commission recognized that a British Airways monopoly would be undeniably bad for consumers and Virgin Atlantic Little Red will stop British Airways dominating routes and driving higher prices.”
The Airline Route Blog stated Air New Zealand will code-share on all “Little Red” services and South African Airways on selected Little Red services.
Virgin’s Little Red services is operated by four Airbus A320 aircraft wet-leased from Aer Lingus in Virgin colors, keeping with Virgin tradition three aircraft have been named ‘Maggie May’ ‘Tartan Lassie’ ‘Queen of the Cobbles’.
Irish Aviation Research Institute © 1st March 2013 All Rights Reserved.
