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Delta and Virgin Atlantic have just started flying some of the summer season schedules across the Atlantic and, as the airlines are very keen to stress, they’re increasing the number of seats on offer and, in Delta’s case, making some much needed improvement to the Business Class seats on offer on some routes.
Services To London
Seasonal Routes Return
Delta is bringing back its seasonal (summer) nonstop services from Portland and Salt Lake City to London-Heathrow.
Service between Salt Lake City and London Heathrow resumes on 1 April 2018 on the following schedule:
DL50 SLC 17:08 – 10:00+1 day LHR (Mon, Thu, Fri, Sat & Sun)
DL51 LHR 10:10 – 14:03 SLC (Mon, Tue, Fri, Sat & Sun)
Service between Portland and London Heathrow will recommence from 3 May 2018 on the following schedule:
DL36 PDX 17:13 – 11:10+1 day LHR (Mon, Wed, Fri & Sat)
DL37 LHR 12:30 – 15:13 PDX (Mon, Wed, Fri & Sat)
Both these routes will be operated by Delta’s 767 aircraft offering 36 Business Class seats, 32 Delta Comfort+ seats and 143 regular Economy Class seats.
Delta 767 Business Class
Virgin Atlantic Adds More Service From JFK
As of this past weekend Virgin Atlantic has taken over one of Delta’s daily JFK-Heathrow flights to increase the number of daily flights it offers out of JFK to 6. This is what the new schedule looks like:
VS3 LHR 09:05 – 11:40 JFK (Daily)
VS137 LHR 12:30 – 15:30 JFK (Daily)
VS153 LHR 13:20 – 16:20 JFK (Daily) **New Service**
VS45 LHR 14:00 – 16:40 JFK (Daily)
VS9 LHR 16:15 – 19:10 JFK (Daily)
VS25 LHR 20:10 – 23:05 JFK (Daily)
VS26 JFK 08:15 – 22:10 LHR (Daily)
VS4 JFK 18:10 – 06:15+1 day LHR (Daily)
VS46 JFK 19:00 – 07:20+1 day LHR (Daily)
VS138 JFK 20:30 – 08:45+1 day LHR (Daily)
VS10 JFK 21:00 – 09:15+1 day LHR (Daily)
VS154 JFK 22:15 – 10:20+1 day LHR (Daily) **New Service**
Clearly this isn’t actually an increase in capacity for Delta/Virgin Atlantic but Delta is making up for this in another way….
Delta Upgauges Its Aircraft
As of this past weekend (24 & 25 March 2018) Delta has swapping out two of its 767 aircraft that operated between New York JFK and London Heathrow for larger Airbus A330-200 aircraft.
The flights affected and their schedules are as follows:
DL401 JFK 19:30 – 07:50+1 day LHR (Daily)
DL402 JFK 22:45 – 10:50+1 day LHR (Daily)
DL1 LHR 10:30 – 13:25 JFK (Daily)
DL2 LHR 17:30 – 22:35 JFK (Daily)
Not only are these aircraft larger than the 767s they’re replacing but they also come fitted with a greatly improved Business Class seat too.
Image Delta
Not only had Delta swapped out the 767s operating between JFK and London Heathrow but the airline has also now added the improved A330s on it routes to Heathrow from both Atlanta and Detroit.
Capacity-wise this may not make a huge difference but suddenly there are a lot more good Business Class seats being offered by Delta to/from Heathrow.
Services To Other UK Airports
Delta and Virgin Atlantic are also making changes to their services to other UK destinations.
In summary:
- Delta and Virgin Atlantic will be offering up to 17 flights a week from New York-JFK and Orlando to Scotland (the most flights the two airlines have ever offered between the US and Scotland)
- Delta will operate daily nonstop services from New York-JFK to both Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports.
- Virgin Atlantic will extend the season in which it operates service between Orlando and Belfast in Northern Ireland. The airlines say that this will have the effect of trebling the number of seats available on this route.
- Virgin Atlantic is in the process of increasing the number of seats it offers between New York and Manchester (this includes adding a Boeing 747 to the route in May).
Lastly, we come to Manchester.
As of this past weekend Virgin Atlantic has brought back its seasonal service to Manchester from Las Vegas which runs on Thursdays and Sundays and is operated by a Boeing 747.
Virgin will be bringing back twice weekly service between Boston and Manchester from 23 May 2018. This service will run on Wednesdays and Saturdays and will be operated by an Airbus A330-200.
From 22 May 2018 Virgin Atlantic will resume its summer seasonal service between San Francisco and Manchester operating the service on Tuesday, Fridays & Sundays using an Airbus A330-200.
Important Note
Here’s a separate post about some of Virgin Atlantic’s Airbus A330-200 aircraft. These aircraft will be operating on some of the routes mentioned above and there’s a good reason why Economy Class passengers should shy away.
