Virgin Atlantic Adds Seasonal Cape Town Flights (Now Bookable With Miles)

Is this growth with new slots or are they dropping a different route?

This is a resumption of a route dropped in 2015. Thomas Cook was the only airline other than BA flying nonstop until their collapse last year

As Alex mentioned, this route used to be operated by Thomas Cook so it seems that VS is going for mostly O&D on this route, because of the flight times you mentioned, Ben. There is that one late JFK flight departing shortly past 8pm and I think a late red-eye on Aeromexico to MEX which is a VS codeshare. Other than that you're out of luck for North America connections and will have to do an overnight in Heathrow.

Resumes rather than adds. For many years they seasonally flew an A346, I think until the Delta partnership. I live in Cape Town, used to be my first choice for London when possible. So glad they're back.

Ditto to what everyone else said. Yes, this is a resumption. I flew it in early 2015 just before it was cut.

A resumption and nothing to do with the Thomas Cook flights being stopping

Very happy VS is resuming their CPT flights!!! Hopefully it will be come year-round instead of seasonal.

wow the schedule is not designed for north american connectivity...

Weird schedule. KLM is the exception to the typical redeye-both-ways practice of European airlines and operates a daytime flight southbound and a redeye northbound, but at least that schedule works very well for North American connectivity. This schedule is not much use for connecting anywhere, except JFK.

@Bgriff Air France also operates a daytime flights southbound and a redeye back to Europe

Lucky this flight is purely for O&D. Have a look at what BA can charge for the Thursday and Friday night direct down from LHR and a Sat/Sunday return.

Flight works perfectly to do a half day in the office in London, get out to Heathrow comfortably for the 4:20 departure and you wake up in Cape Town.

The schedule on the way back will boost yields in Y as you will be home at a sensible time to get a good nights sleep before work.

I LOVE the daytime flights!

I'm booked in June on KLM's morning departure from Amsterdam to Johannesburg, with a return to Paris on Air France's morning Jo'Burg departure. 777's each way.

Both the southbound and northbound flights arrive in time to relax before dinner and turn-in at one's normal time. No jetlag. Perrrrrfect.

Love to see more routes to CPT instead of having to connect through JNB. Real excited to take the nonstop from US (EWR) to CPT at some point this year. Hope they turn that into a year around service instead of seasonal. I am also looking to move to Cape Town full time!

I would happily take the outbound but no way would I book on an 8am return flight

Why are people complaining about lak of NA connections?

There is probbaly enough UK and European traffic to make this worth VSs while without that.

The day flight return would easly allow connections on the last VS flights of the day to both JFK and BOS. Connections also possible to AMS and CDG on KL and AF

On the out bound flights departing the previous night ex e.g. JFK, IAD, BOS and even SFO would also be possible though with a longish layover

I agree that connectivity works much better the way KL does it, i.e. to operate the southbound during daytime and the northbound overnight. But I guess VS had no such slots available at LHR.

Other than that, I never quite understood why most airlines operate both directions over night and have their planes standing around during the day. E.g. LX claims that red eye flights are more popular, which I find hard to believe, especially in Y ...

This flight doesn’t need much connectivity. Historical connections between Cape Town (former Cape Colony) and England remain very strong; and South Africa has the huge tourism advantage of being in +/- the same time zone as U.K./Western Europe — so a long-haul flight for winter sun, to a country where English is widely spoken (whether as first or second language), but with no jet lag.

Just as most Americans seemed to consistently underestimate cultural connections between England and Perth (how many commenters on here insisted that route would be a failure? — whereas it is now apparently Qantas’ most profitable route), there’s a danger many will do the same again with LHR-CPT.

As for a daytime flight: there are already overnight flights. Daytime running offers us another option, which I’d have thought we’d like: the more choices the better, right?

CPT looks a hot spot these days. TAP will announce direct flights from Lisbon to CPT soon. They will also launch Orlando, Beirut, Agadir, Cancun and Lima.