Virgin Atlantic to suspend Pakistan operations after network reviewThe airline said the decision to suspend flights from Heathrow to Pakistan had been taken following a review of its entire network. \u201cAs we continue to ramp up our flying programme in 2023, we\u2019ve taken the opportunity to review our entire network and decided to make a few changes,” a spokesman for the airline said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing this review, it is with regret that we\u2019ve taken the difficult decision to suspend our services between London Heathrow and Pakistan.” The carrier first started flying to Islamabad and Lahore from Heathrow in December 2020 at the height of the pandemic when many of Virgin Atlantic\u2019s traditional markets in the United States and the Caribbean were effectively shut or heavily restricted.<\/p>\n
“During that time, we have also provided important cargo capacity, as well as delivering vital medical supplies,” the spokesman said. \u201cThis is not a decision we have taken lightly, and we\u2019d like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. We would like to wholeheartedly thank everyone in Pakistan; our customers, teams, partners and the authorities for their support over the past two years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Virgin Atlantic pivoted to Pakistan at the same time that the country\u2019s flag carrier, PIA, was banned from operating flights to the UK and Europe because of a pilot qualification scandal. PIA was forced to suspend flights to the UK and Europe in early 2020.<\/p>\n
Virgin Atlantic said it will continue to operate services between London and Lahore until May 1 and between London and Islamabad until July 9. “We will communicate to any customers due to fly after these dates – who will be affected by the cancellations – to provide options, which include rebooking, where applicable, or a full refund.” The airline said suspending services to Pakistan will ensure its resources are \u2018utilised in the most optimal way to achieve operational resilience\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Virgin Atlantic to suspend Pakistan operations after network reviewThe airline said the decision to suspend flights from Heathrow to Pakistan had been taken following a review of its entire network. \u201cAs we continue to ramp up our flying programme in 2023, we\u2019ve taken the opportunity to review our entire network and decided to make a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113378,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113376\/revisions\/113378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/113377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}