athens

So what did ever happen to Athens? Did any of our members who are crew fly there? Was it just not operating full? What did happen? Anyone know?

I think it was part of VS's reponse to 9/11, with their cost cutting measure, lots of routes and virgin sun went, along with the athens route.

It always used to be quite busy when i flew on that route. It operated fom LHR & LGW

Hi willd

The decision had been made to axe the ATH route prior to 9/11 for a couple of reasons. Although the route was busy during the summer, it was very quiet between October and April with just one rotation per day LHR-ATH-LHR 6 days per week...not really great utilisation!

After SQ taking a stake in VS a decision was made to axe the Virgin Sun brand as this didn't fit in with SQ's plans. Consequently VS would've been left with a narrowbody fleet of 1 a/c with all the associated spares/crew/etc costs so it didn't really make financial sense.

Also a couple of other shorthaul routes had been applied for but not granted (incl Moscow) so it was decided to concentrate on longhaul only.

Cheers

Hi Alan,

Interesting to hear that VS applied for Moscow. Things have changed here in the last couple of years especially with DME bringing airport ops into the 21st Cent. SVO was a disaster and still is in many ways. Was it to do with available slots or bi lateral agreements.

BA have moved ops to DME along with EK,LX and QR. Rumours are that LH and * all. will move next year. Load factors to LHR/LGW are averaging 80% amd climbing.

If you know poeple in the know ask them to take another look at it, but then again if you have no a/c not worth it I suppose having just thought about it.

Iain

Yes that is interesting about Moscow as i was under the impression that certainly the route could be operated using a 343 (BA use a 767 and Aeroflot use a mixture of craft). Would have been nice to see VS to Moscow but still.

By the way how long is the journey from Moscow to LHR i thought it was around 5 hours---u said 'short haul' BOS-LHR is only 5hours 30!

From memry, the trip wasn't that long. maybe 3 hours or so...VS used to stop in Moscow enroute to HKG many moons ago!

Hi Iain

Yes it was a long time ago that VS applied for the route (before my time anyway!) when we had a modest European network (ATH/DUB/MST spring to mind). No licence was awarded though due to the bi-lateral agreement at the time. I'm not aware of Moscow having been seriously looked at recently as a possible new destination, but life is often unpredictable here! [:p]

I was in Moscow a year ago for the airshow and yes I agree SVO was a bit grim but DME looked very promising (good article on DME in August Airliner World btw.)

Cheers

ps I think flight time is about 3 1/2hrs LHR-SVO

Flight times are between 3 1/2-4hrs. LHR-DME is closer to the 4hr mark as the airport is 40km SE of city, and routing is around N/NE of Moscow.

K thanks team for all the information!