Virgin Atlantic Launching Phuket Flights, A Reflection Of The Carrier's Struggles

3 flights a week bringing Brits into Phuket. What could go wrong with that combo?

I sort of agree... There's a plethora of true luxury properties in the Phuket area (including the islands), and not having to connect via BKK is highly appealing. Especially over the festive period with very high rates, I could see this working well. Southeast Asia is booming with requests right now.

So negative. Non-US focus is more than just leisure or stretegic - what about Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Johannesburg, Riyadh?

The UK to Thailand market is extremely under-served with direct connectivity. Only Thai Airways and Eva operate LHR - BKK with load factors in the high 90's through high season (winter). It's one of the fastest growing holiday destinations as many travellers are demanding more from their vacations.

I'm actually delighted to see a new route starting that isn't the US or Caribbean (who is even still vacationing in the Caribbean these days). I think this will be a great addition to the Virgin Network.

Can you explain what’s up with the image of the vs plane you used for post pic - ai?

@ Applesa -- The featured image? It's a real pic I took at Heathrow T3. At some gates you can only see part of the plane, and I thought it actually looked kind of cool.

@ Sharon Kelly -- The Riyadh route is about subsidies. And the India routes *are* largely about connectivity to & from the United States, given Delta's lack of nonstop flights to the country, so they're also about the joint venture.

I'm not saying the new route isn't cool, I'm just saying it's interesting how leisure oriented Virgin Atlantic's non-North America flying is.

I'm not saying people can't look forward to this route. I'm just saying it's interesting to see a network, non-LCC serve HKT but not HND, HKG, SIN, etc. Isn't that fair enough?

Any level of VS expansion to anywhere in the world other than North America is very welcome, but as Ben points out this is going to leave them with a really odd East Asian presence. If you'd asked me 15 years ago to guess what 2 East Asian airports VS would be serving in the future there's no way I'd have said ICN and HKT...

It's not a terrible idea. BA uses an ancient 777 that is falling apart on their LGW-BKK service and it seems to fill up easily.

People don't want to fly to the U.S. northeast in winter so why not send the plane somewhere people do?

Choosing to fly someplace where nobody else does rather than in a field of intense competition is a sign of strength, not weakness.

I have a different take. Phuket represents an opportunity on an under-served route to a destination that would be especially desirable in warmer months. It all comes down to marketing and offering attractive packages with hotels. Singapore or Tokyo don't make as much sense because those markets are already saturated out of LON with multiple frequencies on several airlines. The Achilles heal for SkyTeam is in Asia, so connectivity will remain a problem there. Instead, maybe VA should consider a focus on the Middle East--going back to TLV now that there's a ceasefire and expanding in Saudi Arabia, e.g. a nonstop from Jeddah.

Nothing screams "strong" than avoiding competing against other airlines (sarcasm)

Who amongst us hasn't faced a struggle and just said, "Awww, Phuket!"

I thought GRU or GIG would make more sense to VS for a non US destination, especially with delta being friends with LATAM for regional connectivity

VS’ TATL network is more competitive than airline.
In fact, tell us on what other markets VS has a monopoly

Every other VS competitor has far more monopoly markets than VS.

The notion that adding a monopoly market is a sign of weakness is delusionally laughable

Cargo door and the sloping of the plane around it, door not aligning etc - looks off , first thing I noticed

Santastico, thanks for the grin.

“What could go wrong” you ask?

Since you mention it, the situation could actually be much worse don’t you know. It could be three plane loads of Americans, French, Russians or even worse Germans, yes?

An airline with 'atlantic' in its name flying to Thailand reminds me of Asia Atlantic Airways.

If looking to fly SkyTeam from Europe to Phuket, this route sounds like a decent one-stop option even as it includes the hassle of transit passenger security screening at LHR airport.

It's a leisure route; similar to operating LHR-MLE. Yeah, they could have chosen BKK, if they were thinking combination business-leisure, but let's be honest, more tourism from UK to Thailand than business. I don't think this is a bad idea; hope it works out well for them.

Speaking of Thailand, didn't UA820 just fly LAX-HKG-BKK with their 789? (Uh oh, Tim Dunn...)

Agreed. As much as Ben is critical, I think it makes plenty of sense for leisure travelers, some of whom do wanna pay for 'nice' things, like Upper Class, lie-flat, avoiding LHR and BKK.

When VS does it "is a sign of strength, not weakness."

When UA does it "announcement was weak and just adding dots"

Only delusional Tim can make statements like this.

"The Caribbean welcomed approximately 34.2 million international visitors in 2024, a 6.1% increase from 2023 and a 6.9% rise above 2019 pre-pandemic levels, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO). This marks the second consecutive year that tourism has exceeded pre-pandemic figures.

The Caribbean cruise industry experienced a significant rebound, with 33.7 million cruise visits in 2024, a 10.3% increase over 2023, and a 10.9% increase over pre-pandemic levels."

You keep this narrative up of doom and gloom for VS at LHR. What would you like them to do ? It’s not as if they can suddenly start short haul with no slots tbh does that even make money. They are fighting a decade old BA priority at the hub. Shake things up and be a different maybe things would change with a 3rd runway but for now there always treated second best.

Air France commences 3 weekly flights from Paris to Phuket at the end of November.

?? Phuket is served by around 80 airlines. Apart from Virgin and Air France, from Europe you can fly on Finnair, LOT, Singapore, Thai, Qatar, Cathay Pacific and emirates via their respective hubs.

BA operates reg G-YMMA, C, F and D. Indeed they are around 25 years old however not “ falling apart “.

This route makes perfect sense actually. Thailand is almost always the most popular long haul winter destination for the UK market, particularly over Christmas. All the direct flights to BKK always fill up months in advance so the yield of these HKT flights being pretty high. The UK is long overdue a direct HKT service from a scheduled carrier so I can see this being a very successful route.

Not forgetting the business ties, as well as a huge Indian diaspora in the UK for the flights by VS to India.

Virgin will look to sell a large bunch of these seats to HKT via Virgin Holidays, hence the plan to launch next year. Growth of tourism from the UK to Thailand is still increasing and flights in our Winter tend to be pretty full so would be very plausible for VS to take a slice of.

Of course, will it be pulled like (I think) GIG was before it ever starts is another question.

"BKK always fill up months in advance so the yield of these HKT flights being pretty high"

What does filling up in advance to Bangkok, have to do with yields to Phuket?

I swear that A.I. has melted some of you people's brains.

There's nothing off about that picture at all.

"BA uses an ancient 777 that is falling apart "

Most of BA's 777s have brand new interiors. How are they "falling apart?"

They tried twice and canceled both times before they started. I was skeptical the second time. I don´t think they´ll try again till Brazil turns around economically and maybe not even then.

With these times, it may connect half decently to/from a few East coast routes.

Gatwick based planes have the old interiors.

LATAM fly the GRU route, no reason for VS to compete against them.

Two connections- unless you are starting from a European Skyteam hub which isn't MAD or OTP.

I didn't say that UA's addition of Nuuk or Mongolia had anything to do with strength or weakness.

I did say, accurately that UA is making the decision to fly seasonal less than daily service on narrowbodies INSTEAD OF building its domestic network where 737s could also be used.

VS' 787s cannot be used to fly domestic routes.

The principle remains that starting a route where one has an advantage is not a sign of weakness regardless of who does it.

I would not expect you to grasp the concept but it is real nonetheless.

There may well be some money to be made flying mid-haul to places like IST or DSS, but they seem to be copying the DL model which doesn't include any strategy to attract clientele based outside of their own home country.

Heathrow is giving away free slots on new route startups that are not served by a direct point to point flight.

I would have rather see Virgin flying to places like Jakarta ( currently not served from London ) with an onward shuttle to Denpasar.

well, there you go right there.

VS can pick up slots.

Ben clearly never thought of that angle.

Many airports feed LHR and this should work from airports that serve LHR with flights operated by VS and by VS interline agreement partners even if interline partners are not codeshare and SkyTeam airlines.

Very lazy reporting. Virgin have never operated to SIN.

Europe-India flights are getting ridiculously cheap, and VS would suffer low yields in economy class. I see sub-$300 fares between Eurooe and India even for last minute economy class flights. These are 25+ year record low prices I now see.

The fares I see for last minute economy class flights from Europe to India are the lower I’ve seen them in 25+ years. That suggests to me that Virgin Atlantic would lose money trying to serve India.

You're right that VS have interline agreements with virtually everyone in Europe, but their pricing/marketing strategy for those connections is all over the place... which I suppose isn't a huge surprise!

VS needs to find homes for its slots during the winter schedule as it reduces frequencies to the US, they often lease them out to other operators.

Virgin Atlantic will only operate the Seoul flight for the minimum 3 years, as per competition authority remedies for the KAL/Asiana merger, after which it will be free to use the Heathrow slots for any destination, most likely in North America.

Bkk yields have not been great enough for BA to want to compete on it for many years until recently

but the new service is apparently going to result in MORE slots.

So, VS' business model involves getting FREE slots and then leasing some of its existing slots

BA could do the same thing if it wanted to.

except BA doesn't fly to ICN so it is entirely possible that VS might do better than to other destinations, esp. given that ICN is a growing and the largest SkyTeam hub in Asia.

Totally missed the fact that this is all about VS Holidays and capturing the luxury leisure market. It’s a clear narrative since Covid that international business travel is down but leisure travel at the pointy end is up. And airlines are using flights to up profits beyond selling seats (FFPs and Holiday packages - BA has overhauled its entire FFP with the earning spotlight on BA Holidays).

nothing beats a Jet2 holiday...

The Phuket route is incredibly popular - many travellers specifically choose to fly direct to Bangkok to connect onward, as they prefer to avoid Middle Eastern connections. There’s a strong market willing to pay a premium for a nonstop option. Plus, with very few airlines offering premium economy service to Phuket, Virgin Atlantic would be tapping into an entirely new and underserved segment.

“The airline is 49% owned by Delta, so the carrier’s biggest focus is on its transatlantic joint venture with Delta and Air France-KLM.”

Funny enough Air France is starting flights to HKT at the end of November.

LHR don’t give slots away, not sure where the OP got that impression.

VS pulled the ICN flights from sale months ago, haven't reinstated them and haven't issued any communications around the issue, that's all you need to know about the likelihood of the route succeeding.

I bet you would not say that if the Brits were mostly Black or Moslem, or Spanish like you. The liberal elite like to bully innocent white men.

BA uses their old J-seat, 3-4-3 economy Gatwick 777s to BKK, "falling apart" was actually being nice.

What a bizarre statement. Where do you even get this from? I think its time to turn off Fox News and go outside.

Bit of a dig at tui there?? HKT is popular at the moment tui have added more capacity on the route! Air France are going 5 times a week from CDG, finnair are more or less daily from HEL and Qatar is three time daily at peak. Could virgin be a delta of Europe and looking at expanding more east?

"Ceasefire"

Given the fact VS are slot constrained, I don't think it's strange at all. Demand is struggling on US routes since Trump arrived. HND, HKG and SIN are well served for the demand, and operating costs are much higher than Thailand. VS have identified a gap, and with increasing demand for leisure travel to Thailand over winter I think it makes perfect sense, similar story for MLE.

With dynamic pricing I doubt award seats will be any less than 250k per person each way, judging by some of their other peak routes. Don’t think I’ll bother wasting my UK companion voucher on a run down 787-9 on that route thank you.