Virgin Atlantic launching flights to Canada!

Virgin Atlantic is to launch flights to Canada from the start of 2025, flying direct from London Heathrow to Toronto Pearson.

Toronto has two major airports serving the city, Toronto Pearson on the outskirts which services further afield destinations and widebody aircraft. The other being Toronto Billy Bishop which is situated on an island in Toronto bay. Due to the space and noise constraints of the island, Billy Bishop is exclusively served by turboprop aircraft to much more near field destinations.

Flights will commence March 30th 2025 with a once daily flight.

• VS147 scheduled to depart Heathrow at 17:10, arriving in Toronto at 20:30

• VS148 scheduled to depart Toronto at 22:20, arriving in Heathrow at 10:30 the following day.

This flight will be served by Virgin’s A330-900neo, featuring their latest Upper Class suites, including the so-called Retreat Suites situated in 1D and 1G, offering occupants a 6'7 bed.

Virgin has agreed a codeshare partnership with Westjet for onward connection in Canada to cities including Calgary, Alberta, and Vancouver.

As with all flights, Virgin guarantees a minimum amount of seats available to be purchased with points, this is as follows:

• 2x Upper Class

• 2x Premium Economy

• 8x Economy

This is a minimum, and more seats may open up nearer to departure.

These flights have been timed to allow a quick connection to Virgin’s services from India, these being VS355 is scheduled to land at Heathrow from Mumbai at 16:05, and VS301 from Delhi landing at 16:35. Virgin has a high degree of focus on the Indian market, emphasised by its scheduling in 2025, it will offer over a million seats to India for the first time, a 350% capacity growth since 2019. India has huge diasporic ties to Canada, with approximately 1.4 million Canadians of Indian origin according to the Canadian Government. Canada’s tech sector is one of the main draws of Indians to Canada, with a much simpler and efficient visa system than the US's H1-B Visa programme, and the Green Card scheme. Click here to see this video from YouTuber Polymatter for a fascinating analysis of the way Canada’s visa programme works.

Lastly, these flights are due to be put on sale June 19th, so put this date into your diary to snag those points seats.