Virgin Atlantic announced its fifth flight to India with a second daily connection between Mumbai and London from October 2024.
CEO Shai Weiss said, “We see infinite demand out of India. Why? Because I think only 7% of the population have a passport. The number of trips for every 100 people in India is probably around one and a half international trips outbound out of India. China is five times that.”
Wednesday’s announcement comes days after the airline’s maiden flight between Bengaluru and London on March 31. The airline awaits a raise in bilateral seat capacity between India and the UK for its second flight from Mumbai. With this the airline will witness a 350% capacity growth since 2019.
“Next year marks 25 years of Virgin Atlantic in India during which we would have grown from zero seats to 1 million seats,” Mr. Weiss said.
He also said the pandemic years had “strengthened India versus any other market” resulting in the airline hiking its capacity.