Delta and Virgin Atlantic’s joint venture is based around offering customers more options and a seamless experience between the US and the UK. The airlines are continuously evaluating their joint Transatlantic network to match the right aircraft to the right destinations and the summer 2017 network growth and route switches are a clear example of this.
The carrier is reducing its capacity into Brazil this winter through route switches, frequency reductions and aircraft changes in preparation for what its vice-president of Latin America, Mexico and Caribbean, Nicolas Ferri describes as a “long cycle” economic slowdown in the country, in an interview posted on the airline’s website.
US low-fare carrier Frontier Airlines is to introduce a new link between Orlando and Detroit in the final quarter of this year, its fourth route to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport adding to its existing links from Denver, Trenton and Washington. The daily flight to Orlando International Airport will commence from November 18, 2015 and will be operated using an Airbus A320.
UK carrier Virgin Atlantic Airways is to suspend flights to Cape Town, Mumbai, Tokyo and Vancouver as it instead looks to strengthen its transatlantic partnership with shareholder Delta Air Lines. The latest network changes are part of an ongoing network review and business recovery plan to return the carrier to long-term profitability.
Already serving both Washington Reagan National and Baltimore Washington International airports, the carrier will launch 68 weekly flights to 14 destinations from Dulles International Airport from August this year.
US ultra low-fare carrier, Spirit Airlines, has announced it will expand its domestic to offering into Kansas City with the launch of five new routes this summer with daily flights to Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston and Las Vegas from August 2014.