British Airways is offering a 3-day sale from all its Indian ports to London for booking till midnight of 27th July 2012, where it is offering flights from upwards of Rs. 52,000 for a round trip to London. The fare is valid on a 7-day advance fare booking.

I looked up the fare on their website, and it does look lucrative as compared to the regular British Airways fares from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

And they are not alone, seems like Virgin Atlantic has matched them on this route. Here is a screenshot of a sample fare from ITA for a Mumbai-London flight in November 2012, and Virgin Atlantic with their new product on the Airbus 330 will start flying to Mumbai again in October 2012.

Virgin is also cheaper on the Delhi London route.

Do note Air India is almost always cheaper and Jet Airways more expensive than the others. That has been my recent international experience with them where they price themselves higher than the other non-stop operators to the route.

So if you plan to be heading to London this fall/winter, right now is the time to act. You can book till tomorrow night midnight India Standard Time.

Related Posts:

• A Thai Vacay: British Airways Galleries Lounge, Mumbai (BOM)
• The Virgin visits India, again…

Live From A Lounge is also present on Facebook, Twitter and available via RSS.

As per a post put out on AirlineRoute.net, LHR-DEL will be getting a new bird i n the form of a 3-class A330-300 on the LHR-DEL-LHR route from 10th July 2012, replacing the older A340-300 planes. Service on the A330-300 will be configured to offer Economy, Premium Economy and the famous Upper Class service of Virgin Atlantic. The A340-300 will still continue to fly on the Saturday/Sunday service for the time being.

London Heathrow – Delhi eff 10JUL12 Airbus A330-300 replacing A340-300 on 6 of 7 weekly service
VS300 LHR2200 – 1100+1DEL 333 x6
VS300 LHR2200 – 1100+1DEL 343 6

VS301 DEL1315 – 1755LHR 333 x7
VS301 DEL1315 – 1755LHR 343 7

Virgin Atlantic is going big on the Indian market of late, reopening the BOM-LHR segment from October 2012 as well after exiting the market. The BOM service is anyways planned to be a A330 service from the start of the service itself.

This sure should be good news to people who love flying the Virgin brand around in India. Happy Flying!

Related Posts:

• The Virgin visits India, again!

Live From A Lounge is also present on Facebook, Twitter and available via RSS.

About 3 years after Virgin Atlantic last flew out of Mumbai, its making a comeback. From 28th October 2012, Virgin Atlantic plans to offer an Airbus 330 service from between Mumbai and London Heathrow. The airline will fly from London in the morning at 10 AM and from Mumbai at 3 AM, thus following the same schedule as Jet Airways and British Airways offer on this city pair.

The announcement popped up on the Virgin Atlantic website today, and reservations will be offered from 4th April 2012.

Clearly, this decision must have been taken much before wannabe Richard Branson (Vijay Mallya’s) Kingfisher Airlines decided to pull out of the London market. There is a lot of traffic on this route, not just because of the Indian diaspora in London but also financial hubs and connecting traffic. Virgin Atlantic plans to offer connections to US cities including New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington DC. It also plans to offer the Indianised service for the benefit of the Indian guests.

The unintended implications of this move will be felt on Jet Airways, who had a codeshare agreement with Virgin Atlantic on the BOM-LHR route, which clearly looks like it is not needed any more.

In a market where a lot of airlines are curtailing capacity to India, Virgin Atlantic will sure win a lot of hearts with this move if nothing else!

Live From A Lounge is also present on Facebook, Twitter and available via RSS.