Virgin Atlantic

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Virgin Atlantic has announced it plans to restart passenger flights from Heathrow Airport next month.

The airline said in a statement flights to Orlando, Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York and Los Angeles would resume on 20 and 21 July.

In a statement Virgin Atlantic warned that it was continuing to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic.

It said: "As countries around the world start to relax travel restrictions, Virgin Atlantic will resume some routes on 20 July while steadily increasing passenger flying throughout the second half of 2020, with a further, gradual recovery through 2021 in line with customer demand."

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Virgin Atlantic's significant cutback to its 9,000 jobs was not inevitable in the current coronavirus crisis, the head of a pilot association has admitted.

Brian Strutton, who is the general secretary of the British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA), said he was concerned about thousands of staff being laid off.

"For Virgin to announce it is cutting a third of its workforce and that it is pulling out of Gatwick Airport altogether, it is another bitter blow for the aviation industry.

"There are serious issues ongoing for all parts of the airline industry.

"I don't think it was inevitable, every airline is struggling because of coronavirus crisis.

"The government said it was going to help but we haven't seen any of that.

"It is not a matter of fighting, it is a survival of a large aviation industry which is so critical for the economy.

"At the end of this year we have full Brexit and we need this industry working well.

"We need to work out how airlines are going to get out of this mess."

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Earlier we brought you the news that Virgin Atlantic was to cut 3,000 jobs.

The airline has clarified that 3,150 jobs are to be lost worldwide and while they cannot give a country-by-country breakdown the majority will be in the UK.