Virgin Atlantic has announced a trio of new destinations for the spring of 2025. In addition to flying to Toronto, Canada, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the SkyTeam carrier is adding flights to a third destination…
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Virgin Atlantic adds London to Accra flight
As of May 1, 2025, Virgin Atlantic will launch a new daily flight between London Heathrow (LHR) and Accra (ACC). The airline will use the Boeing 787-9 for the route, and it will operate with the following schedule:
VS403 London to Accra departing 10:30PM arriving 5:00AM (+1 day)
VS404 Accra to London departing 9:15AM arriving 5:25PM
The 3,160-mile flight will be blocked at 6hr30min southbound and 7hr10min northbound. The flight should become bookable as of September 12, 2024. Keep in mind that Virgin Atlantic has an award seat guarantee, so this should be easy to book with Flying Club points once the flight becomes bookable.
This flight to Ghana represents a service resumption, rather than a new route. Virgin Atlantic last flew to Accra in 2013, so it has been over a decade since the carrier served this market. Virgin Atlantic will be competing directly with British Airways, which also flies once daily between the airports.
Accra will be Virgin Atlantic’s fourth destination in Africa, after year-round service to Johannesburg (JNB) and Lagos (LOS), plus seasonal service to Cape Town (CPT).
The timings of the new Accra and Riyadh routes seem to coincide with the timings of the Tel Aviv (TLV) route, which has been suspended for some time. Since Heathrow is slot controlled, I can’t help but wonder if Tel Aviv is getting cut, and is being replaced by these two destinations.
What’s Virgin Atlantic’s motivation for Accra service?
What’s Virgin Atlantic’s motive for once again flying to Accra? The airline notes that:
- Currently competition between the two countries is lacking, as only British Airways flies nonstop between the airports
- The UK is home to the third largest Ghanaian diaspora in the world, so this route will be leisure oriented, for those visiting friends and relatives
- Around 10% of customers are also expected to connect through London onto Virgin Atlantic’s New York (JFK) service; the New York route is the only one that provides connectivity here, given the 5:25PM arrival in London
I’ve gotta say, as far as route justifications go, this is one that sort of leaves you scratching your head. The route is expressly intended for leisure travelers, and there’s a single North America destination that passengers can connect to, with no onward connectivity in Accra, at least not through codeshares or partnerships.
The interesting thing about the nonstop London to Accra market is that at least historically, economy fares have been quite high. Admittedly that’s probably because British Airways had the market to itself up until now. But at least in economy, fares are much higher between London and Accra than they are between London and New York, despite the latter being a bit longer.
Virgin Atlantic seems like it has a massive disadvantage here compared to British Airways. British Airways’ service is timed for connections in both directions, as the flight departs London in the early afternoon, and arrives in London in the early morning.
I’m curious for how long this Virgin Atlantic route lasts, at least on a year-round basis…
Bottom line
As of the spring of 2025, Virgin Atlantic will launch a new daily flight between London and Accra. This is a route resumption, as Virgin Atlantic last operated this service in 2013.
Virgin Atlantic expressly states that this is a point-to-point leisure route, with the airline expecting that roughly 10% of passengers will connect to New York, and that’s it. I’m curious to see how this route performs, as Virgin Atlantic is competing with British Airways, which has some advantages here.
What do you make of Virgin Atlantic launching Accra flights?
It’s wonderful news I used to fly with Virgin when they were flying to Ghana and back I am so happy they are resuming their flights again. God bless Virgin Atlantic looking forward to fly with you again.
Ghanaian are happy now
The scheduled timings also open up the possibility of well timed connections to DEL and BOM. Not just JFK.
Perfect competition and will help improve services and standards as passengers will have a choice to make.
Very happy we need it hopefully the fare will be a bit cheaper
Bravooooo, welcome back it's long overdue can't wait
Ghana doesn't have an easy evisa or visa on arrival for US/UK/EU nationals (afaik), so not sure how successful it can be with just the diaspora of Ghanaian nationals .
All these routes should encourage the governments to provide visa on arrival or easy evisa process
Great news. Monopoly market is not good. The news many has been waiting for a long time. Welcome to get your customers back.
Virgin Atlantic departure time (10:30PM) from London to Accra, was the best departure time schedule. It was sorely missed, when the airline abruptly stopped flying to Accra!!!
I can't wait to fly back to Accra with Virgin, arriving in the early morning is so convenient and refreshing
You should try to connect Ghanaian travellers from other cities in the US to JFK to catch the London flight to connect to Accra
Will we ever see them back in Nairobi??
I am so happy virgin is back
The best thing about it is the morning arrival and also there is going to be competition.
Good good news
Arrival time into LHR should be 425p assuming the flight is blocked at 7h10m
And you conducted a survey ? Because it’s a cosmopolitan city. People who are humane would tend to care about everything.
I can wait to fly with you especially from London to Accra
this route is long overdue as British airways is ripping us off. hope this brings the prices down. I used virgin over i5 years ago, the deliver excellent service. landing in Accra in the morning is something I really cherished. the market is there and this route will easily be filled.
Another opportunistic random bet - I hope Ghanaian's know Virgin is not committed to you long term and will run as soon as they can resume elsewhere where they'll have mostly white passenger loads. They did this with Pakistan flights during covid - it's also interesting how Virgin Atlantic is effectively a 'white people's' airline and generally serves destinations where white people go to apart from when they cynically start routes because they're bit screwed.
What a ridiculous comment. They have flown to Nigeria for 25 years.
vlcnc...I don't know you. But I know you MUST have purple hair, bathe once or twice weekly, eat vegan noodles, wear a cattle rose ring, drink soy milk, have a black tile on your social media accounts, wear a keffiyeh, decorate your basement bedroom with Socialist Alliance posters, and spend 18 hours daily on TikTok, and you have an excruciatingly annoying voice. Oh, and you're white, middle class, with slave owning ancestors. Awkward.
And you’re clearly an immature t—t judging by that comment.
@John - Your bigotry shows itself with that comment, so pls continue!
The only reason virgin Atlantic is coming back to London to accra is what going on in tel aviv route. You once dump this route so what do you think Ghanaians will trust your services. The devil you know is better than the angel you don't know. BA all the way
The Ghana-London market has grown around 30-40% since pre-pandemic days so there is definitely a positive momentum there.
That said, the market is obviously dominated by British Airways who serve Accra daily from Heathrow as well as thrice weekly from Gatwick. Approx. 60% of their Heathrow traffic is O&D to London and 90%+ of their Gatwick traffic. Totally they transport nearly 190k of the 250k passengers. Yields to Heathrow are nearly double of those...
The Ghana-London market has grown around 30-40% since pre-pandemic days so there is definitely a positive momentum there.
That said, the market is obviously dominated by British Airways who serve Accra daily from Heathrow as well as thrice weekly from Gatwick. Approx. 60% of their Heathrow traffic is O&D to London and 90%+ of their Gatwick traffic. Totally they transport nearly 190k of the 250k passengers. Yields to Heathrow are nearly double of those to Gatwick and BA does a good job balancing their revenue management on the parallel routes to cater to the different markets.
The challenge is that Virgin is introducing 198k annual seats into a market whose total size is barely that anyway, and is doing so with minimal connectivity on either end. That will likely result in a short term price war, and consequently a rationalisation of capacity either with Virgin pulling out or reducing frequency, or BA's Gatwick services facing the axe. In any case, BA will need to shift their Heathrow traffic flows back towards onward connecting traffic again which is significantly lower yielding than the O&D they have been generating.
OMAAT really needs to start a once-a-month expert opinion piece about aviation in different markets with Sean M as the guest writer for Africa
And Tim Dunn for the fluff opinions.
But he's here more like every Delta post.
Difference is Sean knows what he’s talking about and is straight to the point. Tim doesn’t and uses a wall of words to overcompensate.
This is replacing the Air France CDG ACC route. KLM continues to operate daily from Amsterdam.
Not sure it’s replacing it as VS is not going to operate CDG-ACC.
Duh! I am fully aware, however it is.
the new ACC and RUH flights operate with different time channels.
between the two, they allow use of an aircraft that would otherwise overnight at LHR from a daytime flight from the US so can be done with essentially one additional aircraft.
second, DL flies JFK-ACC so it is unlikely that VS will get much if any connections from JFK to ACC via LHR other than the low yield spill that DL doesn't want...
the new ACC and RUH flights operate with different time channels.
between the two, they allow use of an aircraft that would otherwise overnight at LHR from a daytime flight from the US so can be done with essentially one additional aircraft.
second, DL flies JFK-ACC so it is unlikely that VS will get much if any connections from JFK to ACC via LHR other than the low yield spill that DL doesn't want to carry
and 3, it is obvious that VS is at a disadvantage compared to BA in operating a hub at LHR. The whole point of the DL/VS alliance is to give VS feed on the US end as good as or better to what AA/BA or UA can get from the US. VS still has to figure out the longhaul connections beyond LHR since they only operate widebodies. There are a few JV intra-Europe flights that connect beyond LHR and that will grow with SK which has fewer gateways in the US than DL/VS gate to/from LHR.
ACC (and West Africa generally) is a strange market: people are convinced that US carriers are mean to them, so a surprising number will bounce through Europe instead of taking the direct flight.
(What they don't appreciate is that US carriers are mean to *everybody*)
the majority of capacity from Africa to the US and Europe is to Europe and that is related to stronger economic and colonial ties between Africa and Europe.
It has nothing to do with how nice airlines are to passengers.
Regardless of the truth behind their beliefs, there is definitely a distinct belief by Ghanian airline consumers that DL/UA/etc are ripping them off and can't be trusted. Yes the colonial ties help add capacity but the point here is that there will be consumers who fly ACC-LHR-JFK on VS over ACC-JFK because they believe that, even if it isn't necessarily true
I’m more surprised that they can’t make Cape Town work year-round, even up against BA.
the chances are pretty high that the longer flight to CPT generates less revenue than flying to the US or any other destination that can be done with a single airframe flying a roundtrip; CPT requires more than one aircraft per round trip.
VS shifts some of its capacity off the N. Atlantic in the British winter.
the chances are pretty high that the longer flight to CPT generates less revenue than flying to the US or any other destination that can be done with a single airframe flying a roundtrip; CPT requires more than one aircraft per round trip.
VS shifts some of its capacity off the N. Atlantic in the British winter.
You dont need connections to make this work. It can be filled up just with demand in London and Ghana.
Direct flights from LHR into Africa have always been over-priced. If you have a spare 10 hours, you can go via Turkey or the ME to save a few quid.....but none of the tickets is reasonable on a cost per mile basis.
Tel Aviv is most probably not being cut. Just last week VS sent the following email (see below) to customers, reaffirming their service to TLV. With BA severely down-gauging the route and with LY being a monopoly basically, plenty of opportunity there.
"Our route from London to Tel Aviv is an important one to us. It goes without saying that the safety and security of our customers and our people is always our number one...
Tel Aviv is most probably not being cut. Just last week VS sent the following email (see below) to customers, reaffirming their service to TLV. With BA severely down-gauging the route and with LY being a monopoly basically, plenty of opportunity there.
"Our route from London to Tel Aviv is an important one to us. It goes without saying that the safety and security of our customers and our people is always our number one priority. So we wanted to let you know that following the latest security and safety assessments, we’ve taken the difficult decision to delay the restart of our Tel Aviv services. We now plan to resume from 25th September - as long as it’s safe to do so.
Meanwhile, we recently announced our partnership with EL AL for greater choice and flexibility for your trips between London and Tel Aviv, and beyond. Not only does this partnership offer you multiple flights to Israel each day, but as a Flying Club member you can also earn tier points when you fly with EL AL.
We look forward to resuming our Tel Aviv service soon, and giving you a warm welcome onboard in true Virgin Atlantic style.
Yours,
Siobhan Fitzpatrick
Chief Experience Officer"