(TAN): Virgin Atlantic is set to launch flights to Delhi and Mumbai from Manchester, the airline has announced.
Flying three times a week from Manchester to Mumbai beginning in December and twice weekly to Delhi starting in January, these new services will go on sale on October 20 and will complement the airline’s existing daily services to these two Indian cities from London Heathrow.
These new services will open up over 130,000 seats between Manchester and India and aim to respond to the large, fast-growing demand to visit friends and relatives as well as capturing demand for business and leisure travel to the region as global economies gradually recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Juha Jarvinen, chief commercial officer at Virgin Atlantic said, “We’re delighted to launch new flying from our home in the north in Manchester. India boasts the largest foreign-born population in the UK and we’re anticipating that post Covid-19, the demand to travel home to visit loved ones will increase.”
Andrew Cowan, chair of Manchester India Partnership, said, “Securing direct services to two major Indian cities will unlock a wide range of benefits to the whole of the North. I am sure the routes will prove popular with the more than 500,000 people of Indian origin living across the region, while helping to further strengthen trade and cultural ties in both directions.”
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Both the flights will be operated on Boeing 787-9. Return fares for Mumbai starts from GBP 473 (USD 615) per person and for Delhi GBP 480 (USD 624) per person.
The airline is offering a hot food service in all cabins including special meals catering for individual dietary requirements. Meals have been redesigned to limit interaction, enclosed and controlled from preparation in a Covid-safe, monitored environment to the moment it is served.
