British carrier Virgin Atlantic shuts operations in Pakistan

TCSN World Desk

Virgin Atlantic has ended its operations in Pakistan with
the last flight of the British carrier taking off from Islamabad to London’s
Heathrow Airport on Sunday. A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority
said that the final flight left from Islamabad International Airport to
London’s Heathrow

Airport at 8 am (local time). The British airline
began its operations at Islamabad airport in December 2020 with seven weekly
flights. The airline initially operated four flights to Manchester and three to
Heathrow Airport, the Dawn newspaper reported on Monday. Later, the
airline reduced its services to only three weekly flights to Heathrow Airport.
Virgin Atlantic provided the best air travel services to customers between
Islamabad and London, the report said. “As we continue to ramp up our
flying programme in 2023, we’ve taken the opportunity to review our entire
network and decided to make a few changes,” a Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said.
He expressed regret for taking the “difficult decision” to suspend the services
between London’s Heathrow and Pakistan.

“Since commencing operations in December 2020, we
have been proud to offer choice for customers travelling between London and
Manchester in the United Kingdom, and Islamabad and Lahore in Pakistan. During
that time, we have also provided important cargo capacity, as well as delivering
vital medical supplies,” the spokesperson said. “This is not a decision
we have taken lightly, and we’d like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
We would like to wholeheartedly thank everyone in Pakistan; our customers,
teams, partners and the authorities for their support over the past two years,”
he added.