Both destinations will be reinstated next week, while from April, capacity to New York, San Francisco and Atlanta is also increasing.
In April, a third daily service to Los Angeles will commence, with Virgin serving the Californian city “more than any other airline”. Virgin will operate Orlando flights from Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast, which it said would be more than any other carrier.
The airline said the reinstatement followed “renewed customer confidence and a strong uptick in bookings, which are up 50% year on year”.
Seattle flights will depart five times weekly from Heathrow from 2 March. From 5 March, Heathrow to Washington services will operate five times a week. Last month, Virgin announced its first new US route since 2015, to Austin, which will operate four times weekly from 25 May.
Juha Jarvinen, Virgin’s chief commercial officer, said: “Following the relaxation of travel restrictions, we’ve seen demand increase to many of our global destinations, but particularly to our heartland in the USA. Our customers can’t wait to return.
“We’re simply not Virgin without the Atlantic and our growing transatlantic portfolio demonstrates why we’re the airline of choice to the USA.”
An updated flexible booking policy enables Virgin Atlantic customers making a new holiday or flight-only booking for travel up to 31 August 2022 to make changes to travel dates, origin or destination. Travel can be rescheduled until 31 December 2023.
