Virgin Atlantic launches flights from Manchester to Las Vegas

Virgin Atlantic has begun operating its new route from Manchester to Las Vegas, as well as confirming the resumption of flights to Israel later this year.

The new Manchester-Vegas service operates three times a week using Airbus A350-1000 aircraft equipped with economy, premium economy and Upper Class cabins.

The route complements Virgin’s existing daily London Heathrow-Las Vegas service and increases the number of US routes it serves from Manchester to four. The carrier already flies from Manchester to Orlando, New York and Atlanta.

In a separate move, Virgin announced it would resume daily Heathrow to Tel Aviv flights on September 5 – almost a year after the route was suspended in October 2023 when war broke out between Israeli forces and the Palestinian group Hamas.

The airline has also signed a new codeshare partnership with Israeli carrier El Al, which will eventually see up to four daily flights between London and Tel Aviv. This agreement will apply initially to El Al flights from June 10 and then to Virgin’s resumed services to Israel from September.

Other developments include Virgin working on new commercial partnerships with SAS Scandinavian Airlines, which will come into force when SAS officially joins the SkyTeam alliance on 1 September.

Virgin also announced a new codeshare with another SkyTeam member, Saudia. This deal is already active and allows Virgin passengers traveling from the US to connect via Heathrow and Manchester to Saudia services to Jeddah and Riyadh.