Branson’s baby celebrates 25 years of flying in India

New Delhi: Virgin Atlantic, founded by English magnate Richard Branson, is celebrating 25 years of flying to India, an official release has said.

Since first launching flights between London Heathrow and Delhi in July 2000, India is now the airline’s third largest market and has grown from zero to one million seats each year, with five flights daily from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Growth of 350 percent since 2019

The increase is also a huge boost for cargo operations with additional capacity to support the movement of goods from the fashion, pharmaceuticals and tech sectors.

With five daily services, Virgin Atlantic Cargo offers over 53.4 million kg of space to and from India, a 356 percent increase in capacity versus 2019.

Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss and Chief Commercial Officer Juha Jarvinen marked the occasion recently, alongside local crew in front of India Gate.

Virgin Atlantic’s services offer seamless connectivity and a premium long-haul experience onboard one of the airline’s latest products, the Airbus A350, with 40 percent of Indian customers choosing to connect via London Heathrow to destinations throughout North America, including the airline’s new service to Toronto, as well as Seattle, San Francisco and New York.

In addition, Virgin Atlantic’s partnership with IndiGo, India’s largest airline, offers connections to 34 destinations across India including Varanasi, Amritsar, Srinagar, Goa and Lucknow.

Since the launch of the partnership in September 2023, the airlines have connected more than 200,000 customers across codeshare services.

A recent recruitment of Indian-based crew ensures that each flight to India will now average three Indian crew on every flight, speaking Hindi and local dialects — double that of 2024.

Its UK-based cabin crew have also undergone cultural training to better understand and meet the needs of its Indian customers. A variety of new dishes that reflect the rich culinary heritage of India are now available onboard and customers can enjoy a selection of Indian movies, TV series and Bollywood albums on the in-flight entertainment, the release adds.

Shivani Singh Deo, India Country Manager at Virgin Atlantic said: “We are super proud of all that Virgin Atlantic has achieved in our 25 years of flying to India, growing our offering from zero to one million seats and expanding from Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. Our premium service offers a brilliantly different experience to the market, offering seamless connections to Canada, USA and beyond via London Heathrow, as well as throughout India by leveraging the power of our commercial cooperation with IndiGo. We look forward to welcoming many more customers over the next 25 years.”

Virgin Atlantic offers five flights a day to London Heathrow — one daily to Bengaluru, and twice daily to both Mumbai and Delhi.