Tag: restart

Virgin Atlantic to resume passenger flights to 17 additional destinations

Virgin Atlantic has said that it is planning to restart passenger flights to 17 additional destinations from August 2020.

The airline recently announced that flights from London Heathrow are expected to resume from July 20. Virgin Atlantic has now announced more detailed plans that will see passengers flying again to many destinations across its network.

Virgin Atlantic plans to resume flights from London Heathrow to: Hong Kong on July 20, New York on July 21, Los Angeles on July 21, Barbados on August 1, Shanghai and San Francisco on August 4, Tel Aviv on August 9, Miami on August 18, Lagos on August 23 and Atlanta on August 25.

Virgin Atlantic has decided to delay the restart of its flights to Orlando, which will now resume from London Heathrow and Manchester on August 24. Seasonal services from Glasgow and Belfast to Orlando will resume for selected dates in summer 2021.

The airline said that it is also planning to restart flights from London Heathrow to Washington, Seattle, Las Vegas, Mumbai, Delhi and Johannesburg during September 2020. Flights from London Heathrow to Boston, Montego Bay, Antigua, Grenada and Tobago are planned to restart during October 2020. This is when flights from Manchester to Barbados will also return.

Virgin Atlantic has announced additional measures to ensure safety during travel. These include thorough cleaning practices at all stages of travelling, adherence to safe distancing wherever possible and the use of face masks for all passengers and cabin crew. The airline recently revealed a new personal Health Pack that every customer will receive onboard a Virgin Atlantic aircraft.

Tui to restart flight programme on July 11

Tui, a multinational travel and tourism company headquartered in Germany, has announced that it is to fly to eight destinations when it restarts its flight programme on July 11.

The company’s restart has been put back from the initial July 1 target due to ongoing coronavirus restrictions. The eight destinations available from July 11 are in Spain and Greece, following a recent announcement that travellers arriving in Spain would not be subject to the two-week quarantine as currently imposed on arrivals to the UK .

The destinations that will be available are; Crete, Rhodes, Kos and Corfu in the Greek Islands, Tenerife and Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands, and Mallorca and Ibiza in the Balearics. Subject to advice from the UK government, Tui also plans to increase its number of destinations to 19 by the end of July, served by five UK airports. Face masks will be compulsory for travellers on the company’s flights, while other antiviral measures by the airline include digital check-in, increased aircraft disinfection and social distancing arrangements at destination hotels.

The company has also said that it will only fly customers to destinations that will not require quarantine measures on arrival, and that in-resort support will be available to its customers around the clock, seven days a week.

Further destinations could be made available soon, as Tui’s commercial director Richard Sofer has said that the company has ‘absolute confidence’ that the British government will ultimately scrap its quarantine measures for travellers from abroad entering the UK.

Air France resumes operations from Birmingham Airport

Air France has recently said that it is resuming operations from Birmingham Airport to assist with essential travel and repatriation to and from the Midlands.

Starting June 15, Air France will operate the Birmingham – Paris route twice a week using an Embraer 190 aircraft. Frequencies will increase weekly with the daily service resuming on July 6. As the peak summer season approaches, Air France passengers will have the opportunity to connect to up to 150 destinations worldwide via Paris CDG.

Benedicte Duval, General Manager for UK & Ireland, said, ‘As borders reopen and travel restrictions begin to ease, we are fully focused on the safe and gradual resumption of air travel. After this challenging period, we are delighted to be able to welcome our Midlands based customers back on board. As we all adapt to this new environment, I can assure you that all Air France staff, both on the ground and on board, are committed to guaranteeing our passengers the highest levels of health & safety.’

Tom Screen, Aviation Director of Birmingham Airport said: ‘We are delighted that Air France will resume flights from Birmingham Airport on the 15th June. Air France has been a partner airline of Birmingham for many years and offers passengers direct access to Paris and onward connections to up to 150 destinations.

‘We want to reassure customers that their safety is our number one priority, and as we restart operations we advise all to please follow the health and safety guidance available on our website. We look forward to welcoming the return of Air France, and its customers, to the airport from Monday.’

In line UK government guidelines, Air France requires customers to wear a mask throughout their journey. This is in addition to a range of health and safety measures implemented by Air France in response to the COVID-19 health crisis, which include compulsory wearing of masks for all airline crew members and airport handling agents in contact with customers.

In addition, Air France has introduced temperature checks using contactless infrared thermometers for departing passengers. The customer channels on the ground have been modified with the implementation of physical distancing along the journey at the airport and the installation of Plexiglas protection screens at airports whenever possible.

Further, Air France aircraft will feature an air recycling system fitted with ‘High Efficiency Particulate Air’ or HEPA filters that extract some 99.99 percent of the smallest viruses, including those no larger than 0.01 micrometres. The airline will reinforce daily aircraft cleaning procedures and introduce a specific procedure for the periodic disinfecting of aircraft by spraying an approved virucidal product effective for 10 days. On domestic flights and short flights in Europe, meal and beverage services have also been suspended.

easyJet to restart flying from June 15 with new bio-security measures

easyJet has said that it will resume some flights on June 15.

UK-based Services will be operating from London Gatwick, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Belfast, and Isle of Man in the UK. In addition, flying will resume in France from Nice, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyon and Lille, as well as from Geneva in Switzerland, Lisbon and Porto in Portugal, and Barcelona in Spain.

The flights will operate mainly on domestic routes alongside a minimal number of international routes. Several new measures will be in place to help ensure the safety and wellbeing of all customers and crew onboard. These include: enhanced aircraft disinfection for easyJet aircraft; customers, cabin and ground crew will be required to wear masks; there will also initially be no food service onboard flights, all of which operate on a short-haul network. The measures have been implemented in consultation with aviation authorities ICAO and EASA, and in line with relevant national authorities and medical advice through the airline’s chief medical adviser.

Johan Lundgren, CEO of easyJet, commented: ‘I am really pleased that we will be returning to some flying in the middle of June. These are small and carefully planned steps that we are taking to resume operations. We will continue to closely monitor the situation across Europe so that when more restrictions are lifted the schedule will continue to build over time to match demand while also ensuring we are operating efficiently and on routes that our customers want to fly.

‘The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew remains our highest priority which is why we are implementing a number of measures enhancing safety at each part of the journey from disinfecting the aircraft to requiring customers and crew to wear masks. These measures will remain in place for as long as is needed to ensure customers and crew are able to fly safely as the world continues to recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

‘We look forward to welcoming our customers back onboard in June.’

The airline has also released a video outlining the new measures being taken. The video can be viewed at: https://vimeo.com/420797408/e0c5ccb978.