Virgin Atlantic delays its return of flights to Orlando

The United Kingdom's largest carrier of passengers to Orlando has delayed its return to late August 2020.

Virgin Atlantic announced earlier this month that it planned to resume flights to Orlando from July 20, but has now pushed that start date back to August 24 2020 for both London Heathrow and Manchester airports. In addition, the airline points out that the route is still pending CDC approval.

Virgin will begin flying to New York JFK from London Heathrow on July 21 and Miami on August 18 2020.

The United States still has a ban in place on foreign nationals entering the U.S. from the United Kingdom, and the U.K. government continues to advise against all non-essential international travel. While Virgin could resume flights carrying only U.S. citizens, it would seem likely that it would need the restrictions lifting for the airline to make a success of U.S. bound flights. 

In a statement the airline said:

Virgin Atlantic has taken the difficult decision to delay the restart of its London Heathrow to Orlando service and it will now resume on 24th August 2020. Seasonal services from Glasgow and Belfast to Orlando will resume for selected dates in summer 2021. We will continue to monitor our network on an ongoing basis and expect more flights from London Heathrow and Manchester to resume in September and October 2020.