They’ve already tied the knot, so to speak, so why not move in together?
Delta Air Lines Inc. has announced that it will move all flight operations into Terminal 3 at London’s Heathrow Airport to be closer to joint venture partner Virgin Atlantic Airways, of which Delta owns a 49 percent equity stake.
The move from the recently remodeled Terminal 4, which has been home to other SkyTeam partner airlines, will save time for passengers, the airline said, especially those with last-minute changes and cancellations on Delta/Virgin. According to Delta’s website, travel time between terminals 3 and 4 on the Heathrow Express train is at least 20 minutes.
“Our joint venture with Virgin Atlantic is all about making it easy for our customers to connect between our airlines and having our Heathrow service under one roof is crucial to delivering a synched-up, more convenient service,” said Nat Pieper, Delta’s Paris-based senior vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, in a news release.
Delta’s flight from London to Atlanta, along with those to Detroit, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and Philadelphia, will make the move Sept. 14 to join existing routes from New York-JFK, Boston and Seattle, which are already operating from Terminal 3.
While running their flights separately and maintaining their own brands, Delta and Virgin sell tickets together, allow customers to accrue miles when flying on either carrier and offer seamless transfers on each other’s networks.
Delta operates 11 daily nonstop flights between London and eight U.S. cities. Together, the airlines will have up to 40 transatlantic flights per day this summer, 28 of them in and out of Heathrow.
The airlines joined forces in 2013, as Delta sought access to highly competitive landing slots at Heathrow, which is severely constrained with only two runways. Atlanta, by contrast, has five. Delta purchased its stake in the Virgin Atlantic for about $360 million.
Heathrow is the third busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic behind Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta and Beijing Capital International Airport.
For more information, visit Delta.