Virgin Atlantic has canceled its planned route to Brazil, before it even launched (thanks to Neil for flagging this). This isn’t even the first time that the carrier has done this.
In this post:
Virgin Atlantic won’t fly from London to Sao Paulo
As of May 2024, Virgin Atlantic was supposed to launch a daily, year-round nonstop flight between London Heathrow (LHR) and Sao Paulo (GRU) using a Boeing 787. The flight went on sale as of September 2023, and would’ve marked the carrier’s first route to South America.
Virgin Atlantic has just revealed that it won’t be launching this route after all. The airline claims that this route is being “postponed” to 2025, though I’d be highly skeptical of that claim. It’s not like the airline has a sudden fleet shortage, as it had planned for this route. At best, I think this is a “maybe we’ll consider the route again next year” situation.
While Virgin Atlantic isn’t providing a detailed explanation for why the route is being canceled, the airline states that it’s due to a review of its network, and that this is not a decision that was taken lightly. I have to imagine that the motivation for this route cut was just that initial demand once bookings opened was very soft. Then again, the route wasn’t due to launch for another several months, so you can’t help but wonder how reflective that is of demand.
The London to Sao Paulo route continues to served by both British Airways and LATAM.
The challenge with Virgin Atlantic’s route network
As a passenger, I’m a big fan of Virgin Atlantic, as the airline offers a great passenger experience, and has friendly employees. However, from a business standpoint, the concept of being an exclusively long haul airline is also tricky. Virgin Atlantic operates a pretty fragmented route network, revolving around a few main strategies.
Virgin Atlantic’s biggest business is operating a huge network to the United States, which is straightforward enough, as the airline has a joint venture with Delta (Delta even owns a 49% stake in the airline). In reality, Virgin Atlantic sort of loses its identity in all of this, since Delta and Virgin Atlantic largely operate flights interchangeably depending on demand, and Virgin Atlantic has the advantage of lower operating costs.
The second area is that Virgin Atlantic has a pretty robust Caribbean network, targeted heavily at British tourists, given the islands that are most popular with Brits. That’s also pretty straightforward, and there’s lots of point-to-point traffic.
Then there’s the third area, which is the trickiest. Outside of the Delta joint venture and point-to-point Caribbean traffic, Virgin Atlantic seems to struggle with what exactly it should do:
- Virgin Atlantic’s only destination in “far” Asia is Shanghai; the airline faces a lot of competition from Gulf carriers, probably limiting potential in much of Asia
- Virgin Atlantic then operates a few Africa and India routes, in markets that have strong point-to-point demand, and that have strong demand for transatlantic connections
- Virgin Atlantic flies to Dubai, but that’s also a market that’s hard to compete in, given how much service Emirates operates between London and Dubai
Finding new markets beyond North America and the Caribbean isn’t easy, given how strong competition is, and Virgin Atlantic’s lack of a competitive advantage. Even though Virgin Atlantic had arranged to have a partnership with LATAM for its Sao Paulo service, I’m also not surprised that Virgin Atlantic might not have succeeded in the market.
Bottom line
Virgin Atlantic will be canceling its planned London to Sao Paulo route before it even launches. This is the second time that the route has been canceled, though the first was around the start of the pandemic. I’m not surprised to see that Virgin Atlantic seems to be struggling with making South America service work, given how the carrier’s network is structured.
What do you make of Virgin Atlantic cutting Sao Paulo before it even launches? Are you surprised?
It always puzzled me how Virgin Atlantic has this relatively large route network of medium and long-haul flights but zero short-haul flights. Their shortest flight is LHR-TLV for example. I don't think there are any other full-service carriers in the world with a network like that. (Are the Virgin branded airlines even considered full-service carriers?) Why has Virgin Atlantic never really tried to establish their own short-haul network out of LHR or LGW to compete...
It always puzzled me how Virgin Atlantic has this relatively large route network of medium and long-haul flights but zero short-haul flights. Their shortest flight is LHR-TLV for example. I don't think there are any other full-service carriers in the world with a network like that. (Are the Virgin branded airlines even considered full-service carriers?) Why has Virgin Atlantic never really tried to establish their own short-haul network out of LHR or LGW to compete with BA? (There used to be Little Red but even that was very limited.) I feel like that might be what is holding back their growth. Having to rely almost completely on London O&D and possibly some US-India traffic to fill those flights can be an uphill battle. It would help them a lot if they had many intra-European flights to help feed their long-haul flights. CDG and AMS would be a great place to start given the plethora of intra-European Skyteam connections there.
Virgin Atlantic's PR department is the most deluded, tone deaf, ridiculous outlet.
WHO in their right mind would start a news release basically saying we aren't launching the flights we have been selling since sept to Sao Paulo with
"We are thrilled to begin flying to São Paulo. It’s the gateway to South America and signifies an incredibly exciting opportunity for us. We regularly review our network to ensure it’s as strong and efficient...
Virgin Atlantic's PR department is the most deluded, tone deaf, ridiculous outlet.
WHO in their right mind would start a news release basically saying we aren't launching the flights we have been selling since sept to Sao Paulo with
"We are thrilled to begin flying to São Paulo. It’s the gateway to South America and signifies an incredibly exciting opportunity for us. We regularly review our network to ensure it’s as strong and efficient as possible. Following a review of our upcoming flying programme for 2024, we will be moving the start of our highly anticipated Sao Paulo services to 2025.”
They take their customers for fools.
Their best choice should be to combine a route to Rio de Janeiro (as planned before) and Buenos Aires. Why ? Because they have the combined amount of business & leisure with lower competition compared to Sao Paulo (already served 2x daily non-stop, while BA serves both Rio and Buenos Aires with 1x daily combined).
Airlines manage to get extra demand during IATA winter to destinations like EZE/GIG (American JFK-EZE is being increased, JFK-GIG...
Their best choice should be to combine a route to Rio de Janeiro (as planned before) and Buenos Aires. Why ? Because they have the combined amount of business & leisure with lower competition compared to Sao Paulo (already served 2x daily non-stop, while BA serves both Rio and Buenos Aires with 1x daily combined).
Airlines manage to get extra demand during IATA winter to destinations like EZE/GIG (American JFK-EZE is being increased, JFK-GIG seasonal services are launched) while Sao Paulo gets less business demand.
To offer connections out of GRU does not help develop the service as they are fighting for the same London traffic as BA (but BA can handle Europe/Asia/Africa origination traffic).
So for me, GRU isn't such a route that VS would take advantage of because of their London-Centric position. It can be a 2nd route to Brazil, but never the 1st.
VA employee was just a biiiittt off when they chose the pin locations for their route map:
- Atlanta moved 600 miles west to Shreveport, LA
- Austin looking more like Midland, TX
- San Francisco somehow became the midway point between Los Angeles and Seattle
Even in the USA, their most served market (from the UK), there are glaring holes in their network. No ORD, no IAH, no DFW. Oddly, their one Texas destination is AUS which I've heard they are leaving. This hodgepodge network map is part of their problem. It's somewhat incoherent. Also, great point in calling out Dubai service. When your resources are somewhat limited, why fly there? There's SO much service already. Surely there are other,...
Even in the USA, their most served market (from the UK), there are glaring holes in their network. No ORD, no IAH, no DFW. Oddly, their one Texas destination is AUS which I've heard they are leaving. This hodgepodge network map is part of their problem. It's somewhat incoherent. Also, great point in calling out Dubai service. When your resources are somewhat limited, why fly there? There's SO much service already. Surely there are other, far more compelling and less competitive destinations to serve.
the common theme between Chicago, Dallas and Houston is that these are major hubs for competitors that have the ability to feed their LHR flights. In the case of Chicago and Dallas, AA and BA can feed flights on both ends of the route. And VS' financial turnaround started when it partnered w/ DL which serves the "feed" function from DL hubs, some of which overlap with major coastal markets.
Keep in mind that...
the common theme between Chicago, Dallas and Houston is that these are major hubs for competitors that have the ability to feed their LHR flights. In the case of Chicago and Dallas, AA and BA can feed flights on both ends of the route. And VS' financial turnaround started when it partnered w/ DL which serves the "feed" function from DL hubs, some of which overlap with major coastal markets.
Keep in mind that VS is part of the joint venture with Air France/KLM and Delta and there is service on one or more joint venture partners that operate on a more traditional hub basis.
To address the questions about what VS is doing with their aircraft from cancelled routes: VS could redeploy those aircraft to increase service frequency on their remaining routes.
I'm a bit surprised they don't leverage their SkyTeam membership to launch flights to MEX and Cancun. Both are popular with British tourists and the Aeromexico connectivity may help as well.
Agreed. I think they could even do SJD 1x weekly.
« the airline faces a lot of competent from Gulf carriers »
I think you meant « competition » here.
Also, Virgin will begin service to Seoul in far east once Korean/Asiana merger is approved - as part of agreement with Korean Air and British authority.
At least Virgin can count on some feed from Korean Air network in Japan and maybe Australia/NZ (not many) as Skyteam partner.
China Eastern could also feed Virgin at Shanghai...
« the airline faces a lot of competent from Gulf carriers »
I think you meant « competition » here.
Also, Virgin will begin service to Seoul in far east once Korean/Asiana merger is approved - as part of agreement with Korean Air and British authority.
At least Virgin can count on some feed from Korean Air network in Japan and maybe Australia/NZ (not many) as Skyteam partner.
China Eastern could also feed Virgin at Shanghai in theory, but I never see a ticket originating Japan and towards London via Shanghai with Virgin leg. Maybe domestic Chinese feed?
Didn't Virgin also just cut Austin flights? With TLV flights also being suspended, I wonder where Virgin will fly these spare aircraft. Will it resume flights to Pakistan? I don't know why they were cut (I've heard things including government approval issues, and Virgin wanting to utilize its planes on higher yield markets). Virgin's Pakistan routes were mostly going out full. They might make more money on adding frequencies to other U.S. markets, but if...
Didn't Virgin also just cut Austin flights? With TLV flights also being suspended, I wonder where Virgin will fly these spare aircraft. Will it resume flights to Pakistan? I don't know why they were cut (I've heard things including government approval issues, and Virgin wanting to utilize its planes on higher yield markets). Virgin's Pakistan routes were mostly going out full. They might make more money on adding frequencies to other U.S. markets, but if they don't have anywhere else to fly these planes, my money is on them resuming their Pakistan routes.
VS Pakistan flights might've been full but that doesn't necessarily mean they are good business. For almost all carriers from UK to South Asia, while there will be some business travel, the majority of passengers will be VFR - likely choosing based on best value (price & baggage allowance) rather than on loyalty to a brand like Virgin.
Virgin operated Pakistan flights during the pandemic because the US borders were closed to UK and European passport holders so they had a lot of spare aircraft. The passengers on the Pakistan flights ignored the 'Do Not Travel' government advice and visited friends and family at both ends.
With the US borders opened, I suspect US routes with plenty of business travelers are more lucrative and a better use of the aircraft.
But...
Virgin operated Pakistan flights during the pandemic because the US borders were closed to UK and European passport holders so they had a lot of spare aircraft. The passengers on the Pakistan flights ignored the 'Do Not Travel' government advice and visited friends and family at both ends.
With the US borders opened, I suspect US routes with plenty of business travelers are more lucrative and a better use of the aircraft.
But yes, Virgin will surely have some spare aircraft next year and may increase frequencies to existing destinations.
Flights to Pakistan don't take a very direct route these days. They need to avoid Ukraine, Iran and Afghanistan. Did I miss others?
While Virgin Atlantic does try to feed some of its flights to destinations east of London with its US network combined w/ Delta, flights such as to GRU highlight that it is a point to point carrier competing directly against BA which has a robust connecting network.
Just as we saw with Austin, BA is willing to play hard ball and then pull its own schedule down when when VS pulls back.
With respect, the GRU flight cancellation is really just another example of how Virgin isn't much of a BA competitor, if it ever was. It's largely a Delta stooge flying where Delta tells it to fly (hint hint: connecting to DL JV partners when Delta wants them to...).
But... Virgin's role in aviation really should just be providing competition to BA's TATL network. That's, by far, the best way they can utilize their limited...
With respect, the GRU flight cancellation is really just another example of how Virgin isn't much of a BA competitor, if it ever was. It's largely a Delta stooge flying where Delta tells it to fly (hint hint: connecting to DL JV partners when Delta wants them to...).
But... Virgin's role in aviation really should just be providing competition to BA's TATL network. That's, by far, the best way they can utilize their limited slot portfolio at LHR in combination with DL.
No. Virgin's "role in aviation" should be flying how and to where it can make the most money.
Competing head-to-head with BA, has proven in most markets, to not be that.
VS is one of the few point to point longhaul international carriers.
It shows the power of the hub and spoke system. The PTP longhaul system doesn't work when it competes w/ hub and spoke carriers.
and since VS is adding flights to other Skyteam hubs, including ICN, they see the value in hubs.
Virgin Atlantic seems to be an airline on run-off, constantly shrinking. No Sao Pãulo, Lahore, Karachi, and no flights for the immediately future to Tel Aviv, but no added destinations that I'm aware of. What are they doing with all of these planes that are no longer flying to all of these destinations?
They’re adding flights to Bengaluru next year (see my other comment)
How successful were they with TLV?
All of Virgin's Atlantic flights were timed to connect to TLV, and without TLV flights it could be one reason why GRU was no longer viable.
You haven’t written an article yet about Virgin Atlantic launching Bengaluru flights April 1st. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/virgin-atlantic-to-start-daily-flights-from-uk-to-bengaluru-from-next-year-8646721/