It seems to be UK calling for airlines this winter. While Vistara, the joint venture airline of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, is ramping its Delhi to London Heathrow service for the winter, Virgin Atlantic will launch new routes to Manchester.
From November 21, Vistara will increase its weekly frequency from the current four to five flights. This will further rise to seven flights from December 1.
The airline is operating these flights as part of the bilateral ‘transport bubble’ between India and the UK.
Virgin Atlantic will fly three times a week from Mumbai to Manchester beginning in December, and twice weekly from Delhi, from January. These new services will go on sale on October 20. The airline already connects the two Indian metros with London Heathrow.
The announcements comes weeks after SpiceJet announced the launch of non-stop flights connecting Delhi and Mumbai with London’s Heathrow airport from December 4, becoming the third Indian airline, and the first low-cost carrier, to fly to the British capital.
Vigrin is hoping to find customers in 500,000 Indians living across the north of England. "These new services will open up over 130,000 seats between India and Manchester 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," the airline said on October 15.
Vistara said it has re-timed the flights, effective October 25, with the westbound flight UK017 departing Delhi at 13:45 hours and touching down in London at 17:45 hours the same day. The return flight, UK018, will depart London at 20:50 hours and arrive in Delhi at 10:25 hours the following day, it added.
Vistara’s Delhi-London route will continue to be serviced by its brand-new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, the airline said.
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