VIRGINAtlantic will launch flights to India for summer 2000 under a codeshare deal with national carrier Air India.
The UK airline will use three of Air India’s unused frequencies to offer a thrice-weekly schedule to Delhi from Heathrow.
Services will fly each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday on a three-class Boeing 747 aircraft.
Air India will continue to offer four weekly flights on the Heathrow-Delhi route on the other days of the week.
These will not be codeshared with Virgin. The Virgin-Air India partnership means British Airways will face daily competition for the first time from Heathrow to the Indian capital.
As exclusively reported in last week’s Travel Weekly, Virgin chairman Richard Branson met Indian aviation officials in Delhi responsible for the running of state-owned Air India to thrash out a new deal for UK flights.
Branson said: “There is growing demand for services between our two countries, which the current service frequency simply cannot fulfil.
“We will start with three flights a week between London and Delhi next summer and we would ultimately love to operate daily services to both Delhi and Bombay.”
Air India serves Bombay with six weekly non-stop flights from Heathrow and with four that continue on from the Delhi service. Virgin is expected to develop its co-operation to take in some of these frequencies.
Joint flights to Bombay will offer competition to BA’s daily service to Bombay from Heathrow. BA also serves Calcutta twice weekly in an extension to its Delhi services.
Virgin claims 300,000 passengers – some 40% of the UK-India market – fly to the Indian sub-continent via a third country, such as Germany or Belgium due to lack of available non-stop seats.
It will use sister company Virgin Holidays to fill seats to India from summer 2000, as well as promote the Upper Class business-class product to premium customers.
From summer 2001, Virgin is also planning to use three more of Air India’s spare weekly frequencies to add to the Delhi schedule.
The agreement signed by Branson also includes co-operation on yield management, product development, pro-rate deals, crew training and cargo services.