Virgin Atlantic to suspend services to Pakistan

Virgin Atlantic will suspend its services between Heathrow and the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Islamabad later this year.

The carrier’s final Lahore flight will be on May 1, then the Islambad service will end on July 9.

A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson 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.

“Following this review, it is with regret that we’ve taken the difficult decision to suspend our services between London 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 UK, and Islamabad and Lahore in Pakistan.

“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.”

The routes were launched during the Covid pandemic when many destinations, including the US, were closed for travel.

They were targeted to capture the visiting friends and relatives (VFR) market which was one of the first sectors to recover.