Virgin Atlantic (VS, London Heathrow) will retain three of the twelve London Heathrow slot pairings its Little Red unit will relinquish when it terminates operations in September 2015. The other nine are to be returned to British Airways (BA, London Heathrow) which gave them up in return for European Commission approval of its takeover of bmi british midland (Nottingham East Midlands).
Virgin CEO Craig Kreeger told an audience at the World Travel Market in London earlier this month that Virgin would ideally like to use the 3 remaining slots to increase its international coverage
"The three Manchester International slots are our own and will be returned to us to use on long-haul if we wish. We have not yet made any definitive decision on how we use them," he said.
Even though the slot times themselves are not particularly well adapted for transatlantic flights, Kreeger added that in the longrun, they would likely be used to increase frequencies on existing routes or for more flights to its equity partner Delta Air Lines' hubs.
“Maybe eventually, but today 70% of our capacity is UK-North America and we are very focussed on making the Delta relationship work.”
However, it has since emerged that the carrier is in talks with other parties concerning the possible leasing out of two of the slot pairs. Virgin says it does not currently have adequate numbers of B787-9s to make full use of the slots.
“We are planning to lease these on a short-term basis, but they will remain open to us and that gives us options for growth as our new aircraft become available," the airline told the Sunday Telegraph last week.
