Virgin Atlantic Firms Plans For Seoul Launch

Virgin Atlantic has firmed plans to launch a new route to Seoul using remedy slots gained through the merger of Korean Air and Asiana Airlines.

Service between London Heathrow Airport (LHR) and Seoul Incheon International Airport (ICN) is slated to commence on March 29, 2026, operating daily using Boeing 787-9 aircraft. The move will expand the UK-based airline’s Asia-Pacific network to five destinations, joining Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi in India, as well as Malé in the Maldives.

The launch is being made possible by remedy slots awarded to Virgin as part of the regulatory approval process for Korean Air’s acquisition of Asiana Airlines, which was finalized last December.

In 2023, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority flagged concerns that the deal could damage competition between the UK and South Korea, given Korean Air and Asiana are the sole operators of nonstop flights between the countries. To resolve the issue, Korean Air agreed to make seven weekly London Heathrow slot pairs available to Virgin that will be used to open the route to Seoul.

Virgin already has a codeshare agreement with fellow SkyTeam partner Korean Air, allowing passengers to connect from Seoul to 15 cities across the Asia-Pacific region. These include Brisbane and Sydney in Australia; Fukuoka, Hokkaido, Nagoya, Okinawa, Osaka, Tokyo Haneda and Tokyo Narita in Japan; Auckland in New Zealand; Da Nang, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam; and Hong Kong.

According to OAG Schedules Analyser data, both Korean Air and Asiana each serve ICN-LHR daily using 777-300ERs and A350-900s, respectively, offering a combined 8,400 two-way weekly seats. Capacity is scheduled to increase to more than 8,800 seats from July when Korean Air begins to offer three frequencies per week using 747s.

Prior to the pandemic, British Airways also offered daily service on the 5,503-mi. (4,782-nm) route, but the carrier has not resumed service since suspending operations in 2020.

Sabre Market Intelligence figures indicate that O&D traffic between the UK and South Korea totaled approximately 462,000 two-way passengers in 2024, with 37% of travelers flying indirectly. The most popular one-stop connecting points were Shanghai, Helsinki and Dubai.

Details of the new Seoul route come six months after Virgin pulled flights to Shanghai—the airline’s sole route to mainland China—blaming “significant challenges and complexities” resulting from not being able to overfly Russia.