Nearly 30 years after launching Virgin Atlantic to bring a new challenger to long-haul flying from the UK, Sir Richard Branson is now bringing the fight to home turf – with the launch of the brand new ‘Little Red’ domestic service.
Bringing a splash of red to the sky, Branson’s Little Red service will offer four daily round-trips between London Heathrow and Manchester, six daily round-trips to Edinburgh and a further three daily round-trips to Aberdeen. An extra service was added to Manchester last week, offering four flights a day instead of the three originally planned, to give passengers even more flexibility and offer even better connections to India along with other destinations on Virgin’s worldwide network.
Virgin Atlantic Little Red will be offering a taste of the customer service Virgin Atlantic is world-renowned for with free 23kg luggage check-ins, pre-assigned seats, complimentary snacks and drinks and even hot breakfasts on early morning flights. A series of exclusive brand partnerships have been lined up for passengers including specially created Tyrrells crisps – ‘Plane crisps’ made from miniature potatoes, a variety of exclusive miniature spirits from Bacardi Martini and Scotland’s favourite drink, Irn Bru on the Scottish services. Virgin Atlantic is also exploring further exciting on-board product offerings, from Krispy Kreme doughnuts to The Collective Dairy yoghurts topped with Rude Health granola.
After successfully bidding to the European Commission for the Heathrow slots made available after British Airway’s parent company IAG took over bmi, the airline that flies in the face of ordinary is restoring competition on these three routes which have faced a monopoly since that takeover. Slots made available by IAG will be used to fly to Scotland from 5th April and Virgin Atlantic has utilised its own slots to add the Manchester service from 31st March.
Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Atlantic founder and president, said: “Virgin Atlantic has been on an incredible journey since we started with a single plane 29 years ago. Little Red represents the next step on that journey as we go head to head with British Airways to provide domestic flights that deliver Virgin Atlantic’s rock and roll spirit as well as real value for money.
“The European Commission recognised that a British Airways monopoly would be undeniably bad for consumers and Little Red will stop British Airways dominating routes and driving higher prices.”
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