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British Airways may have announced yet another route to the US yesterday, but Virgin Atlantic has just stolen all the thunder in the UK by announcing that it plans to launch services to the Maldives and the Turks & Caicos Islands in 2023.
Virgin’s new routes
On 22 October 2023, Virgin Atlantic will launch a winter seasonal service between London Heathrow and the Maldives which will operate 3x/week. Flight-only bookings will go on sale from 30 November 2022.
On 15 November 2023, Virgin Atlantic will start to serve the Turks & Caicos Islands on a twice-weekly year-round schedule. Flight-only bookings will go on sale from 11 January 2023.
Both routes will be served by Virgin’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners offering the following cabin choices:
- 31 Upper Class (Business Class) seats
- 35 Premium Economy seats
- 192 Economy Delight, Classic and Light seats
The airline hasn’t yet published the schedules for either route so we don’t yet know what days of the week these services will operate.
Fortunately, however, it doesn’t look like we’ll have to wait too long to see what the schedules will look like because although we’re still a few weeks away from the Maldives flights going on sale, Virgin has said that it will start selling package deals to the Maldives from 18 November (tomorrow!) and, presumably, the airline will have to let people who are booking package deals what their flight timings will look like.
Packages to the Turks & Caicos will also go on sale before flight-only bookings are offered (in January 2023) but Virgin Atlantic hasn’t yet said when exactly this will happen. All we know is that packages to the Turks & Caicos will go on sale “later in the year”.
Quick thoughts
Ok, I’ll admit it. I have as much interest in visiting the Maldives as I have in having my left arm removed – if I want to get stuck on a small island with a lot of suspiciously wealthy and very ill-mannered Russians, I can do it for a lot less money in the Mediterranean – but I appreciate that others may feel differently. I also appreciate that it will be nice to finally see British Airways being given some competition on this route.
I’m a lot more excited about the new Caribbean route because not only is this set to be the only non-stop route between London Heathrow and the Turks & Caicos (the British Airways flights stop off in Antigua or Nassau), but it’s also going to be a route to a great destination.
The T&C is a beautiful set of islands full of fantastic beaches and friendly people and UK-based flyers are going to love having it as a new non-stop option on which they can burn some points (albeit in conjunction with some obnoxiously high surcharges).
Bottom line
Virgin Atlantic has announced that it plans to launch a new seasonal route between London and the Maldives next winter and that it also plans to launch a new twice-weekly, year-round route between London and the Turks & Caicos. Look out for an update tomorrow when, hopefully, we’ll know what the Maldives schedule looks like.
Featured image courtesy of Hyatt: Sailrock Resort South Caicos (an SLH property)
