Virgin Atlantic has announced a plan to restart passenger flights to 17 additional destinations from August.

It follows the airline’s previous announcement that services from London Heathrow are expected to resume from July 20, 2020 onwards.

The company has unveiled more detailed plans that will see passenger flying restart to many destinations across the airline’s network.

What have Virgin Atlantic said about the changes?

Juha Jarvinen, chief commercial officer at Virgin Atlantic said: “As countries around the world begin to relax travel restrictions, we look forward to welcoming our customers back onboard and flying them safely to many destinations across our network.

"From July 20, we are planning to resume some services and then from August 1 onwards, we will resume passenger flying to 17 additional destinations around the world including Tel Aviv, Miami, Lagos and San Francisco,”

“However, we are monitoring external conditions extremely closely, in particular the travel restrictions many countries have in place including the 14-day quarantine policy for travellers entering the UK.

"We know that as the Covid-19 crisis subsides, air travel will be a vital enabler of the UK’s economic recovery.

"Therefore, we are calling for UK Government to continually review its quarantine measures and instead look at a multi-layered approach of carefully targeted public health and screening measures, including air bridges, which will support a successful and safe restart of international air travel for passengers and businesses.”

When and where will Virgin Virgin Atlantic fly to?

Here's a list of destinations that Virgin plan to fly to from London Heathrow Terminal 2 (All are subject to change and are dependent on travel restrictions):

  • July 20, 2020: London Heathrow to Hong Kong
  • July 21, 2020: London Heathrow to New York JFK, Los Angeles
  • August 1, 2020: London Heathrow to Barbados
  • August 4, 2020: London Heathrow to Shanghai
  • August 4, 2020: London Heathrow to San Francisco
  • August 9, 2020: London Heathrow to Tel Aviv
  • August 18, 2020: London Heathrow to Miami
  • August 23, 2020: London Heathrow to Lagos
  • August 24, 2020: London Heathrow and Manchester to Orlando (subject to CDC approval*)
  • August 25, 2020: London Heathrow to Atlanta
  • September 2020: London Heathrow to Washington, Seattle, Las Vegas
  • September 2020: London Heathrow to Mumbai, Delhi
  • September 2020: London Heathrow to Johannesburg
  • October 2020: London Heathrow to Boston
  • October 2020: London Heathrow to Montego Bay, Antigua, Grenada and Tobago (via Antigua)
  • October 2020: Manchester to Barbados

What other changes will be in place?

Virgin Atlantic will operate temporarily from Terminal 2 at Heathrow. The airline will return to London Heathrow Terminal 3 when demand at Heathrow grows, enabling Terminal 3 to reopen.

A spokesperson from the airline added: "Virgin Atlantic has taken the difficult decision to delay the restart of its London Heathrow to Orlando service and it will now resume on August 24, 2020.

"Seasonal services from Glasgow and Belfast to Orlando will resume for selected dates in summer 2021.

"We will continue to monitor our network on an ongoing basis and expect more flights from London Heathrow and Manchester to resume in September and October 2020."