VIRGIN ANNOUNCES TORONTO SCHEDULE

Virgin Atlantic Airways today announced that its daily non-stop scheduled services between London and Toronto will commence from 12 June 2001 with fares from £347 return.

Virgin Atlantic will operate services from Gatwick to Toronto from 12 June. The flights will be operated by a Boeing 747 aircraft and will depart London’s Gatwick Airport at 15.15 arriving in Toronto Lester B. International airport at 18.10 local. The return flight departs Toronto at 20.30, arriving at Gatwick at 08.30 the following morning. Fares go on sale today and start from £347 return (including tax).

Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin Atlantic Airways said: -

“Toronto is the largest city in Canada and I am very excited to be adding this beautiful and diverse destination to our route network. It offers all-year round events and is a hugely popular route. Virgin Atlantic’s sister company Virgin Holidays will be offering a range of programmes to this enormously attractive destination. Virgin Vacations will also be offering Canadian tourists a range of holiday packages from Toronto to London and the rest of the UK.”

Last year 1.3m passengers travelled between London and Gatwick. Toronto is the fourth largest long haul route out of London and with this addition to its route network, Virgin Atlantic will be flying on all the top ten long haul destinations from the UK. In the last year Virgin has pledged its support for Gatwick with the launch of services to Las Vegas and San Francisco together with a planned increase in business class capacity on existing routes including Miami, Orlando, Boston and Newark to cater for the growing business traffic travelling through Gatwick.

Over the last 15 months, the airline has added a significant number of new routes to its network including Delhi, Las Vegas, Chicago and Cape Town. The addition of Toronto will take the total number of destinations served by Virgin Atlantic to 21.