Virgin Atlantic has marked 25 years of operations in India, and its ongoing commitment to growth in the region. Since launching its first flight from London Heathrow to Delhi in July 2000, India has emerged as the airline’s third-largest market, now offering one million seats annually across five daily flights connecting Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. The milestone also highlights Virgin Atlantic’s impressive 350 per cent growth in the Indian market since 2019, reflecting the airline’s strong focus on India as a key global hub.
Alongside options for customers, the increase in flying is also a huge boost for cargo operations with additional capacity to support the movement of goods from the fashion, pharmaceuticals, and tech sectors. With five daily services, Virgin Atlantic Cargo offers over 53.4 million kg of space to and from India, a 356 per cent increase in capacity versus 2019.
The milestone was marked with Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss and Chief Commercial Officer Juha Jarvinen joining the local crew for a commemorative moment at India Gate on May 31, 2025.
Virgin Atlantic’s services offer seamless connectivity and a premium long-haul experience onboard one of the airline’s latest products, the Airbus A350, with 40 per cent of Indian customers choosing to connect via London Heathrow to destinations throughout North America, including the airline’s new service to Toronto, as well as Seattle, San Francisco and New York JFK.
In addition, Virgin Atlantic’s partnership with IndiGo, India’s largest airline, offers connections to 34 destinations across India including Varanasi, Amritsar, Srinagar, Goa and Lucknow. Since the launch of the partnership in September 2023, the airlines have connected more than 200,000 customers across codeshare services.
Virgin Atlantic continues to invest in its onboard experience for Indian customers. A recent recruitment of Indian based crew ensures that each flight to India will now average three Indian crew on every flight speaking Hindi and local dialects – double that of 2024. UK based cabin crew have also undergone cultural training to better understand and meet the needs of our Indian customers. A variety of new dishes that reflect the rich culinary heritage of India including vegetable korma with almond basmati, saag masala and naan, masala dosa, medu wada, spinach uttapam, sambhar and curry leaf chutney are now available onboard and customers can enjoy a selection of Indian movies, TV series and Bollywood albums on the inflight entertainment.
Shivani Singh Deo, India Country Manager at Virgin Atlantic said, “We couldn’t be prouder of all Virgin Atlantic has achieved in our 25 years of flying to India, growing our offering from zero to one million seats and expanding from Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. Our premium service offers a brilliantly different experience to the market, offering seamless connections to Canada, USA and beyond via London Heathrow, as well as throughout India by leveraging the power of our commercial cooperation with IndiGo. We look forward to welcoming many more customers over the next 25 years, surprising and delighting them with our onboard service with extra Indian touches, delivered by our amazing crew.”
