Virgin Atlantic Airways (London) is dropping all service to Sydney, Australia due to increasing costs. The carrier will drop the Hong Kong-Sydney extension on May 5. The airline will continue to operate the London (Heathrow)-Hong Kong portion of the route.
The airline issued this statement:
It is with regret that Virgin Atlantic has announced, its intention to withdraw operations between Sydney and Hong Kong from May 5, 2014, due to increasing costs and a challenging economic environment.
However, Virgin Atlantic will continue to operate services, between London Heathrow and Hong Kong.
Craig Kreeger, Chief Executive at Virgin Atlantic said:
“We intend to withdraw our services between Sydney and Hong Kong. Despite the best efforts of our employees, external factors such as increasing costs and a weakening Australian dollar have affected our profitability.”
“These are still difficult times for the airline industry and as part of our strategy to operate more efficiently we need to deploy our aircraft to routes with the right level of demand to be financially viable.”
At this stage, we will continue to operate our full published schedule below.
| London Heathrow | 21:30 | Hong Kong | 17:40 | VS200 |
| Hong Kong | 19:10 | Sydney | 07:30* | VS200 |
| Sydney | 15:45 | Hong Kong | 22:00 | VS201 |
| Hong Kong | 23:30 | London Heathrow | 04:50** | VS201 |
* +2 days
** + 1 day
Copyright Photo: John Adlard/AirlinersGallery.com. Airbus A340-642 G-VSHY (msn 383) in the 1999 livery completes its final approach to the runway in Sydney.
Virgin Atlantic Airways: 