News story

Moore welcomes airline expansion

Passengers and businesses in Scotland will benefit from increased airline competition, the Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore has said today as he welcomed the news Virgin Atlantic will operate a domestic flying programme from spring 2013.

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government
The Scotland Office

Passengers and businesses in Scotland will benefit from increased airline competition, the Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore has said today as he welcomed the news Virgin Atlantic will operate a domestic flying programme from spring 2013, providing additional routes from Aberdeen and Edinburgh to Heathrow.

From April 2013, the airline will operate six round-trip flights a day between Heathrow and Edinburgh, with three daily round-trip flights between Heathrow and Aberdeen as part of a new domestic network. These routes will provide an alternative to existing British Airways services operating in Scotland and extend Virgin’s long haul network, creating around 150 jobs in the UK.

The Secretary of State said:

“Today’s announcement by Virgin Atlantic is good news for Scotland and will create meaningful, sustainable competition to existing routes. These services operating from Edinburgh and Aberdeen will provide direct links to and from London Heathrow as well as seamlessly linking into Virgin’s long-haul network creating new links between Scotland and the rest of the world. Together this will only benefit Scotland’s business and leisure travellers”.

Published 10 December 2012