{"id":1675605,"date":"2022-10-06T09:53:42","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T13:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1675605"},"modified":"2022-10-06T09:53:55","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T13:53:55","slug":"virgin-atlantic-scraps-uk-flights-to-hong-kong-closes-office-and-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/virgin-atlantic-scraps-uk-flights-to-hong-kong-closes-office-and-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Atlantic Scraps UK Flights to Hong Kong, Closes Office and Services"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fvirgin-atlantic-scraps-uk-flights-to-hong-kong-closes-office-and-services%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1675605&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-virgin-atlantic\">Virgin Atlantic<\/a> announced on Oct. 5 that it\u2019s permanently pulling out of\u00a0Hong Kong, dropping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-flights\">flights<\/a> to the Asian hub and shuttering its offices after 30 years.<\/p>\n<p>The UK company cited a string of factors\u00a0as reasons behind the decision, including issues arising from\u00a0Russia\u2019s ongoing war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter careful consideration, we\u2019ve taken the difficult decision to suspend our London Heathrow to Hong Kong services and close our Hong Kong office, after almost 30 years of proudly serving this Asian hub city,\u201d an airline spokesperson said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/travelweekly.co.uk\/news\/air\/virgin-atlantic-withdraws-from-hong-kong\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The airline stated that \u201congoing Russian airspace closure,\u201d which would have resulted in Heathrow to Hong Kong flight times being extended by between one and two hours, had also played a part in its decision.<\/p>\n<p>Customers who were booked to travel to Hong Kong beginning in March 2023 will be offered a refund, voucher, or the option to rebook on an alternative Virgin Atlantic route, according to the spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur people and customers in Hong Kong have been amazing since we first touched down at the famous Kai Tak Airport in 1994, and since then we\u2019ve provided important connectivity between the UK and Hong Kong for thousands of customers and supported global supply chains through our cargo operations,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>Virgin Atlantic is owned by British billionaire\u00a0Richard Branson and was founded in 1984. The company launched its first<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>flight from the UK to Hong Kong in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/hong-kong\/hong-kong-economy\/article\/3194925\/shock-decision-virgin-atlantic-it-axes-service\">1994<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The airline suspended passenger flights to Hong Kong in December 2021 during a ban on flights out of the UK amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but those flights had been set to resume in March 2023.<\/p>\n<h2>COVID-19 Cases Prompt Airlines to Reduce Services<\/h2>\n<p>That date was later pushed back after Hong Kong remained under strict lockdown amid a new wave of COVID-19 cases, prompting a string of airlines to also cut or reduce flights to the financial hub.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, Virgin Atlantic\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ajot.com\/news\/virgin-atlantic-wonat-fly-to-hong-kong-again-until-at-least-march-2023\">stated<\/a>\u00a0that the deadline was being pushed back due to\u00a0\u201congoing operational complexities\u201d on the flight route.<\/p>\n<p>The company stated on Oct. 5 that aircraft that had been set to fly to Hong Kong\u00a0would instead be used to \u201cincrease frequencies in other key markets from the Summer 2023 schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg reports that\u00a0roughly 46 Virgin Atlantic jobs will be affected by the latest decision to pull out of Hong Kong, with job losses also expected among\u00a0office staff and cabin crew.<\/p>\n<p>The Oct. 5 announcement also means that\u00a0British Airways and Cathay Pacific will now be the only airlines providing\u00a0nonstop flights between London and Hong Kong. British Airways is set to resume flights to Hong Kong beginning on Dec. 6, according to its official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishairways.com\/travel\/home\/public\/en_hk\/\">website.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the first time that Virgin has\u00a0scrapped flights to Hong Kong. Virgin Australia removed Hong Kong to Melbourne and Hong Kong to Sydney services in 2019 after what it called a \u201ccomprehensive review of the route.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>John MacLeod, Virgin Australia Group\u2019s chief commercial officer,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.virginaustralia.com\/release\/virgin-australia-annouces-withdrawal-hong-kong-services\">said<\/a> at the time that Hong Kong had \u201ccontinued to be a challenging market\u201d and that a decline in demand\u00a0following ongoing civil unrest and concerns over the spread of COVID-19 had promoted the company\u2019s decision to pull its services.<\/p>\n<p>Virgin Atlantic didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment by press time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-katabella-roberts\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Katabella Roberts is a news writer for The Epoch Times, focusing primarily on the United States, world, and business news.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virgin Atlantic announced on Oct. 5 that it\u2019s permanently pulling out of\u00a0Hong Kong, dropping flights to the Asian hub and shuttering its offices after 30 years.The UK company cited a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1675605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1675605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1675605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1675605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1675605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}