Virgin Atlantic has introduced the debut of a new continuous route from London Heathrow (LHR) to Toronto Pearson (YYZ). The service is ready to start on March 30, 2025, marking the provider’s return to Canada after practically a decade.
As a part of the announcement, Virgin Atlantic additionally revealed an expanded codeshare partnership with WestJet, which start to take impact as of October 2024.
Virgin Atlantic Launches London–Toronto Route
Virgin Atlantic has introduced the upcoming launch of a brand new route that can join London Heathrow (LHR) and Toronto Pearson (YYZ).
Whereas the official schedule will probably be introduced on June 19, 2024, Virgin Atlantic expects the brand new path to function every day as of March 30, 2025. Tickets will start at £490 ($858 CAD) per particular person.
Virgin Atlantic final flew to Canada in October 2014 with a path to Vancouver, in accordance with knowledge from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm.
The London-based provider plans to function a mixture of plane on the route, together with the Airbus A330-900neo – the newest addition to Virgin Atlantic’s fleet.
Moreover, Virgin Atlantic and WestJet have introduced an expanded codeshare partnership, slated to take impact in October 2024 and broaden all through 2025.
Other than providing Virgin Atlantic passengers extra connectivity to WestJet’s community, in addition to offering WestJet passengers entry to Virgin Atlantic’s community throughout India, Africa, and the Center East, it’s anticipated that reciprocal frequent flyer advantages will take impact in some unspecified time in the future in 2025.
Which means that it’ll ultimately be potential to redeem WestJet {dollars} for Virgin Atlantic flights, and to redeem Virgin Factors for WestJet flights. It’s anticipated that additional particulars concerning the frequent flyer advantages will probably be introduced at a later date.
WestJet and Virgin Atlantic Goal Indian Passengers
As a part of the announcement, Virgin Atlantic famous that the brand new flight to Toronto will present “optimum connectivity” for Indian passengers departing from Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai through London.
On its web site, WestJet outlines that it’s going to present its passengers one-stop connections on a single ticket to locations by no means supplied earlier than, together with Virgin Atlantic’s locations within the Center East, India, and Africa.
Because it stands, Air Canada gives continuous service from Toronto Pearson (YYZ) and Montreal (YUL) to Delhi, in addition to a not too long ago introduced new continuous route from Toronto Pearson (YYZ) to Mumbai (BOM) which will start in Winter 2024/2025.
As a part of the announcement of the brand new Toronto–Mumbai route, Air Canada outlined its boosted total service to India, which gives passengers departing from Calgary (YYC) and Vancouver (YVR) with service to Delhi through London Heathrow (LHR).
It’s attention-grabbing to see each WestJet and Air Canada growing their service to India, with WestJet by a codeshare settlement with Virgin Atlantic and Air Canada by its personal service.
Understand that Air India additionally operates continuous flights between Delhi (DEL) and Vancouver (YVR) and Toronto Pearson (YYZ).
As Air India continues to take supply of new Airbus A350-900 plane, which supply a aggressive product, it is going to be attention-grabbing to see in the event that they’re launched on Canadian routes later this 12 months.
If they’re, passengers would profit from a lowered flying time, since Air India continues to fly over Russian airspace, whereas Air Canada both routes through London or southward over the Center East.
Conclusion
Virgin Atlantic has introduced the launch of a brand new route that can join London Heathrow (LHR) with Toronto Pearson (YYZ). The route is ready to debut as of March 30, 2025.
Moreover, Virgin Atlantic and WestJet are increasing upon their codeshare settlement, which can take impact as of October 2024 and construct all through 2025.
It’s anticipated that reciprocal frequent flyer advantages will probably be launched in 2025, together with the flexibility to earn and redeem factors with both airline.