Virgin Atlantic has announced it will restart direct flights between Heathrow and Cape Town with a daily seasonal service starting 25 October.
Flights will be operated by the carrier’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and will complement its existing daily service to Johannesburg.
VS478 will operate as a night flight, departing Heathrow at 1620 and arriving at Cape Town at 0555 local time. The inbound VS479 will take off from South Africa at 0800, landing in London at 1800 local time. Tickets for the route go on sale from 8 February.
The carrier originally operated the route from 1999 until 2014.
Virgin Atlantic’s chief commercial officer Juha Jarvinen commented: “2020 is an extremely exciting year of continued growth for Virgin Atlantic. Not only are we launching a new service to Sao Paulo in March, but we’re delighted to announce a new seasonal service to Cape Town, offering more choice for our customers than ever before.
“We’re delighted to be flying to Cape Town again – we’re expecting a high proportion of leisure travellers on this route taking advantage of the winter sun, the safaris and of course the world-famous wine region.”
Virgin Atlantic recently launched a new joint venture with existing partner Delta Air Lines and new stakeholder Air France KLM, which now owns 31 per cent of the carrier.