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Virgin Atlantic restores US flights
Following a strong uptick in bookings, which are up 50% year on year, Virgin Atlantic is reinstating its full list of US destinations for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. From April the airline will add frequencies and reintroduce services to the US
Flights to Seattle and Washington DC will take off next week, with services to New York, San Francisco and Atlanta also increasing. In April, a third daily service to Los Angeles will start, serving LA more than any other airline currently from the UK. Virgin Atlantic will operate Orlando flights from Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast, resulting in more flights from the UK to the theme park capital of the world than any other carrier.
Seattle flights will depart five times weekly from London Heathrow on the 2nd March with its B787-9.
From 5th March, London Heathrow to Washington DC services will operate five times a week on an Airbus A330. Last month, Virgin Atlantic announced its first new US route since 2015, to Austin, Texas which will operate four times weekly from 25 May.
Strikes to hit Heathrow
Sadly next week is not currently looking like a great time to fly. Not only are there tube strikes planned for 1 and 3 March, but now Unite have confirmed that drivers at aviation catering firm DO & CO will strike on 4-5 March. DO & CO are the catering suppliers for British Airways at Heathrow (but not other UK airports) As usual the strike is over pay and conditions. With 94% of members voting for action, it’s likely to mean that of it goes ahead there could be substantial disruption.
The strike is due to be from 4am on March 4 until 11.59pm on March 5. Now you may think that surely the aircraft could just take off without catering with BA warning passengers to bring their own food and drink or supplying take out boxes in the lounge. However, the main issue is for the crew who are required to be provided with onboard catering as part of their contract. You would think that there would be some way around this for two days but whether it can be organised in time is another matter.
Usually, most of these strikes get resolved before it gets to that point and I am sure that BA will be putting pressure on DO & CO to settle the dispute. DO & CO also provide catering services to a number of other airlines at Heathrow, including Emirates and Cathay Pacific.
The other potential strike is by tube workers on 1 and 3 March. So if you are planning to travel to the airport you will not be able to use the tube and other methods of transport may be tricky due to high demand. Allow lots of extra time to get to Heathrow. There could also be a knock-on effect on services on 2 and 4 March.
HT: Travel Weekly
UK Passenger Locator form and future travel restrictions
Despite promising some time ago that the UK would simply its overly complicated arrivals form (its the worst form by a long out of the countries I have travelled to), nothing has happened. I can understand the need for a form to capture some data perhaps about arrivals, but with contact tracing being wound down, having such a complex form makes little sense.
Boris Johnson has confirmed the UK’s passenger locator form would be reviewed by Easter which falls on 15 April for Good Friday. Why it needs to take another 7 weeks I have no idea given that we have axed all other Covid rules in the UK! Just have a look at a couple of simple ones like the Swiss one and copy that would be my suggestion. Name, date, contact details, flight number, countries visited. Done.
Grant Shapps is allegedly pushing for the PLF to be axed entirely in April, in time for the Easter holidays. Previously he rightly called the PLF “ridiculously complicated”. Apparently it is the Department of Health, which has insisted on retaining many of the travel rules. Given that now if you have Covid you are legally allowed to go spreading it around, there seems little point in having such an outdated form that just makes the travel experience more stressful due to the added time to check it.
3 comments
Mix up UK government IT with a PDF stretching to several pages know as the Passenger Locacator Form and you know the data will never be retrieved from it under any circumstances. It was pointless at the outset, way too complicated and totally useless.
If we now don’t need any Covid restrictions in our daily lives, we certainly don’t need this crazy form which most other countries have never had and the ones that do make it simple and straightforward.
Great.Can I assume these employees were bailed out from the taxpayer in the form of the furlough scheme? If so, very short memories with the airline Industry on its knees. Just the tonic then, when we are planning to plough hard earned cash back into the system! You couldn’t make it up.
Useless form should be withdrawn.
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