Lack of demand cited for scrapping routes
Virgin Atlantic and Finnair today (March 9) confirmed they were scrapping their services to Mumbai.
Virgin said it will pull off the London to Mumbai route from May. The carrier's website shows no availability for flights departing after May 3.
Finnair said it would temporarily suspend its Helsinki-Mumbai route from May to mid-October.
A spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic said: "We've taken the decision to temporarily suspend flights on this route. Demand for seats on this route is falling fast and the current operators on this route are price dumping seats.
"Official figures show that passenger numbers fell by 18 per cent between January and November 2008 compared to the same period in 2007.
"The route is full of carriers making huge losses so we are not prepared to continue serving it.
"We will monitor the situation with a view to returning to the route when the economic situation might make it profitable to do so.
"Our Delhi service continues unchanged and we will continue to look at serving other cities in India."
Virgin's last operated flight from Heathrow will be VS350 on May 2 with VS351 the final service out of Mumbai on May 3.
With a fall off in traffic caused by the economic downturn the London to Mumbai route is now plagued with overcapacity, and fares, along with airline profits, have fallen as a result.
Finnair blamed the "unfavourable economic conditions affecting both passenger and cargo sales in India and Europe and overcapacity for suspending its four time a week service.
Petteri Kostermaa, its vp for network strategies, said: "The overcapacity has driven air fare levels radically down and cost level has not declined respectively.
"Market conditions for the entire summer period look bleak. Summer is clearly more difficult than winter season on the Mumbai route."
www.virginatlantic.com www.finnairgroup.com