The Hindu Business Line : Virgin plans daily flights to Delhi from Feb 1

THE British airline Virgin Atlantic Airways (VAA) on Tuesday announced that it would operate a daily service on the Delhi-London-Delhi sector from February 1.

"We will offer a daily service between Delhi and London from February 1. Besides, we will also offer a thrice-a-week service to Mumbai from March 27. Both the flights from Delhi and Mumbai will be daylight flights," the airline's General Manager (India), Mr Andrew Fyfe, said.

At present, the airline operates thrice-a-week on the Delhi-London sector. However, at the recently concluded bilateral air services talks between India and the UK, VAA was given permission to operate 10 additional flights on the India-UK route.

Later answering questions, Mr Fyfe said that the airline's decision to launch a daily service on the Delhi-London route would see fares come down "marginally" on the sector.

Airline officials indicated that the decision to launch more flights to India would have a "significant" impact on Virgin's market share in the India-UK market. At present, the airline has a market share of about 13 per cent.

In response to another question, officials said that at the next round of air services bilateral talks between India and the UK, the airline would look to operate a daily service on the Mumbai-London sector, apart from serving Bangalore.

The airline is also to recruit around 100 more cabin crew and ground staff personnel to support and facilitate the daily flight to Delhi, officials said.

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