Virgin Atlantic Cargo to add new US destinations

Virgin Atlantic Cargo will offer space on a new daily service from London to Seattle and extra flights from Manchester to the US.
Seattle joins the airline’s network on March 26 — flying from Heathrow — and Virgin has high hopes for the route.
Virgin Atlantic senior vice president, cargo, John Lloyd said: “Seattle is in the top 15 import/export markets for cargo between the UK and US and the level of interest from customers since we announced plans to start the route last year indicates we can gain a strong share of the market.
“It is clearly an important and growing origin, transit and destination point for cargo as demonstrated by the 10.2% increase in tonnage in 2016 through Seattle-Tacoma. It is a great addition to our US network.”
Virgin Atlantic is also launching direct Manchester-San Francisco operations three times a week from March 28 and a day later commences a new twice-weekly service from the airport to Boston.
At the end of May, these new routes will be joined by the start of daily Manchester-New York JFK flights. April will also see the launch of a new weekly service from London Gatwick to Varadero in Cuba.
Virgin provides some 30% of transatlantic cargo capacity and saw tonnage from the UK to the US increase by 8.4% year-on-year in 2016.
Lloyd added: “2016 was a challenging year for everyone so we are very encouraged by the growth in our volumes from the UK to the US, which were boosted by particularly strong increases on our routes to Atlanta, Miami, New York JFK and San Francisco.
“With the launch of Seattle and our commitment to customers in the North of England we are optimistic of further growth in 2017.”