Virgin Atlantic to resume flights in August

Virgin Atlantic plans resume flights to Barbados from August, the British carrier announced Monday.

The airline, owned by Sir Richard Branson, revealed that Grantley Adams International is among 17 additional airports it will start servicing in just over two months.

The airport is widely expected to reopen on June 30 for regional flights and then in July for international flights.

Following the airline’s announcement that services from London Heathrow are expected to resume from July 20, Virgin Atlantic unveiled plans that will see passengers flying to many destinations across the airline’s network. Flights from Barbados to London Heathrow start on August 2.

Virgin Atlantic’s Chief Commercial Officer Juha Jarvinen said: “As countries around the world begin to relax travel restrictions, we look forward to welcoming our customers back onboard and flying them safely to many destinations across our network. From 20th July we are planning to resume some services and then from 1st August onwards, we will resume passenger flying to 17 additional destinations around the world including Barbados, Tel Aviv, Miami, Lagos and San Francisco,”

“However, we are monitoring external conditions extremely closely, in particular the travel restrictions many countries have in place including the 14-day quarantine policy for travellers entering the UK. We know that as the COVID-19 crisis subsides, air travel will be a vital enabler of the UK’s economic recovery.

“Therefore, we are calling for UK government to continually review its quarantine measures and instead look at a multi-layered approach of carefully targeted public health and screening measures, including air bridges, which will support a successful and safe restart of international air travel for passengers and businesses.”

A draft airline schedule for the Grantley Adams International Airport, which was last updated on June 13 indicated that Jetblue, Air Canada, Caribbean Airlines and British Airways are to be the first passenger flights to resume service.

According to the schedule, Virgin’s main competitor, British Airways has already confirmed that from July 18 to 31, it will arrive at the Grantley Adams from London Gatwick every Tuesday and Saturday, and depart Bridgetown for London every Wednesday and Sunday. That airline’s “summer” schedule is expected to last through to October 24.

JetBlue is expected to have several flights to Barbados from JFK for the month of July while Air Canada has indicated it will have scores of flights from Toronto to Bridgetown from July through to the end of October.