Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Virgin Atlantic begins new Manchester-Las Vegas route

Dita Von Teese on Virgin Atlantic

Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun

A Virgin Airlines 747-400 arrives at McCarran International Airport for a media event to mark the 10th anniversary of Virgin Atlantic’s London to Las Vegas route Tuesday, June 15, 2010.

Updated Monday, April 4, 2011 | 12:43 p.m.

Virgin Atlantic Airways plans to capitalize on its partnership with its American understudy, Virgin America Airlines, as both carriers grow their Las Vegas presence.

Chris Rossi, senior vice president of North America for Virgin Atlantic, on Monday said the airlines are working to develop more interline connectivity and triangular routes at McCarran International Airport to accommodate British tourists who want to visit other destinations when they visit the United States.

Virgin Atlantic became the first foreign carrier to offer two nonstop overseas routes to Las Vegas when it launched twice-weekly flights between McCarran and Manchester, England. The company has flown passengers from London’s Gatwick International Airport to Las Vegas for more than a decade.

In 2004, the No. 3 air carrier in Great Britain, bmi, struck gold when it began flying nonstop flights three times a week between Manchester and Las Vegas.

The airline formerly known as British Midland International said the route was a success and it gave northwest Englanders access to Las Vegas without having to change planes in London.

But when bmi was gobbled up in a merger with Lufthansa in 2009, the Manchester-Las Vegas route wasn’t in the merged carrier’s plans and the route fell by the wayside.

Virgin Atlantic began making the trip on Boeing 747 jumbo jets Sunday.

It was the second new international route news at McCarran in four days. On Wednesday, Mexican discount carrier Volaris began daily flights between Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and Las Vegas and airline officials announced at the arrival that it would add two more flights a week between those two cities in May.

While Virgin Atlantic officials weren’t confident enough that they could announce additional flights right away, executives and a representative from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said they are encouraged with early high bookings.

Airline officials expect 40,000 people a year will fly Virgin from Manchester to Las Vegas and the company already has booked 5,000 seats in advance. The expected 40,000 travelers is in addition to the nearly 250,000 a year Virgin expects to fly from London’s Gatwick International Airport to Las Vegas in a year.

Since 2000 when Virgin began its London service to McCarran, the airline has flown about 2 million passengers to Las Vegas resulting in an LVCVA-estimated $1 billion economic impact.

By adding the Manchester route, Virgin is the first foreign carrier to offer more than one overseas flight to Las Vegas. Several carriers have multiple international routes from Mexico and Canada.

“We look forward to quickly adding more flights,” Julie Southern, Virgin Atlantic’s chief commercial officer, said in a welcoming ceremony and exchange of gifts after the arrival at McCarran’s international Terminal 2. “The signs (of expansion) so far are very, very hopeful.”

Cathy Tull, senior vice president of marketing for the LVCVA, said airlines typically start with trips two or three times a week before stretching to daily service.

“This has been a good week for Las Vegas,” Tull said. “First, we had the Volaris arrival and now this flight from Manchester. Virgin has been a great partner with us.”

She said the completion of McCarran’s new Terminal 3 gates provides an even greater selling point for international carriers because it will have an expanded U.S. Customs presence. Chris Jones, a spokesman for McCarran, said the new facility would be able to process about 2,000 passengers an hour compared with the 800 an hour at the current facility.

In addition to being able to handle more than one international arrival at a time, the new Terminal 3 facility should be able to accommodate more connections with international alliance partners.

It’s a perfect fit for Virgin’s partnership with Virgin America, which has 40 flights a week to Las Vegas, a daily round trip to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and the rest to and from San Francisco International.

Virgin is growing in the North America with routes to a dozen U.S. cities, two in Mexico and one in Canada.

Virgin’s Manchester flights leave Manchester International Airport Sundays and Thursdays at 12:15 p.m., local time, arriving at McCarran at 2:50 p.m. the same day. The return flight leaves Las Vegas at 5:20 p.m., arriving in Manchester at 11:05 a.m. the next day. The flight normally takes 10 hours and 35 minutes from Manchester to Las Vegas and nine hours and 45 minutes from Las Vegas to Manchester.

The airline’s Boeing 747-400 jets are configured with 14 “Upper Class” seats, 58 “premium economy” seats and 379 in the economy class.

On the same weekend of the Manchester-Las Vegas launch, Virgin began flying its new twin-engine Airbus A330-300 jets between England and Orlando, Fla. Southern said Virgin plans to continue flying 747s to Las Vegas because of the larger seat capacity and because the Las Vegas trip would press the A330’s range.

The A330 was used by bmi when it flew the route.

Rossi said Virgin Atlantic is in the process of upgrading its 747s with the Panasonic eX2 inflight entertainment system, which were introduced on the airline’s A330s.

Within two years, the entire fleet will have the system, regarded as the most advanced inflight entertainment system offered.

In addition to a collection of on-demand movies and entertainment programming, the system offers connectivity with individual devices through a USB port. Passengers can use the system to make phone calls, send texts and emails and review documents with the touchscreen, back-of-the-seat system.

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