Delta to partner Virgin Atlantic

By Charles Benoni Okine

Delta Air Lines, America’s revered airline is planning to entrench its presence in one of the world’s busiest airport, Heathrow.

Consequently, the airline is seeking a strategic partnership with Virgin Atlantic which is expected to be consummated later this year. 

Heathrow is the world’s top business destination: Of the top 10 transatlantic corporate markets, eight of them are to London Heathrow.

Delta and Virgin expect to jointly offer 21 daily flights from London Heathrow to the United States of America (U.S.A) by the end of 2013.

According to the President of Delta, Mr Ed Bastian, “London Heathrow is the most important access point for corporate travellers and that was driving force behind our decision to invest in Virgin Atlantic.”

He noted that, “Given the constraints on growth at Heathrow, our partnership with Virgin will enable us to expand our presence at this airport and level the field a little with our competitors, while offering customers even more in terms of choice and benefits.”

With effect from March31, this year, Delta is expected to launch a third daily service between Heathrow and Atlanta for a total of nine daily nonstop flights to five U.S. cities: New York-JFK, Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis-St Paul and Boston. 

Customers will benefit from almost 30,000 weekly seats offered on Delta flights between Heathrow and the United States this summer.

In addition, Delta has been making a number of significant investments in products and services for customers flying from Heathrow, including: Offering fully flat-bed seats on all services between Heathrow and the U.S. – more than 4,700 available each week to five U.S. cities as well as introducing Wi-Fi on transatlantic services

It is also opening a new $1.4billion Terminal 4 at New York’s JFK Airport in May this year, to significantly improve the customer experience for JFK- Heathrow arrivals and departures.

In Ghana, Delta has been the only major airline that flies direct to the USA after other competitors such as United dropped.

Customers of the airline, most of which are business people have described the daily flight to and the US as significant and rewarding and less stressful and expressed the hope that the airline would be able to fly directly to other destinations the states apart from JFK.

Delta Air Lines serves more than 160 million customers each year. Delta was named by Fortune magazine as the most admired airline worldwide in its 2013 World’s Most Admired Companies airline industry list, topping the list for the second time in three years.

With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 319 destinations in 59 countries on six continents. Headquartered in Atlanta, Delta employs nearly 80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more than 700 aircraft.

The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance and participates in the industry’s leading trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia.

Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 15,000 daily flights, with hubs in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-LaGuardia, New York-JFK, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake City and Tokyo-Narita.

Delta is investing more than $3 billion in airport facilities and global products, services and technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the ground.