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More than 250 Virgin Atlantic passengers, including Indians, are stranded at an airport in Turkey for over 24 hours after their Mumbai-bound aircraft from London was diverted to Diyarbakir airport. Virgin Atlantic on Thursday said it was exploring all options, including operating an alternative aircraft, to fly the passengers to Mumbai. In a statement, the airline said the VS358 flight from London's Heathrow to Mumbai on April 2 was cancelled due to an urgent medical diversion to Diyarbakir in Turkey. After landing at the airport, the An A350-1000 aircraft suffered a technical issue, which is being worked on. "We are actively exploring all options, including the operation of an alternative aircraft, to ensure customers can reach Mumbai as soon as possible," it said. A stranded passenger told PTI that all of them were sitting on the floor and there were no blankets available. "Also, there is no vegetarian food available," the passenger said on the condition of anonymity. In an up
Preparing to expand its international operations with long-haul flights, IndiGo will be focusing on expanding partnerships with overseas carriers and joining an airline alliance is not a priority. IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers said the airline works with different partners in different countries. "Some of the partners are of SkyTeam, some are of Star Alliance, that is not so relevant for us... these partnerships have different roles and functions in the network... we will expand these partnerships, have more codeshares, reciprocal codeshares and we will further build on these partnerships. "(Airline) Alliance is not a priority at this point of time," he told PTI on Tuesday. He was responding to a query on whether IndiGo will be looking to join an airline alliance. Currently, IndiGo has codeshare partnerships with nine airlines -- Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, American Airlines, Air France, KLM, Qantas Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Malaysia Airlines, British Airways and Japan Airlines.
A Virgin Atlantic jet collided with another plane while it was being towed at Heathrow Airport on Saturday, aviation authorities said. There were no reports of injuries. Virgin said its Boeing 787-9 had completed a flight and had no passengers aboard when its wingtip clipped a stationary British Airways jet while being towed from a stand at the airport's Terminal 3. Images posted on social media showed several fire trucks surrounding the two planes, whose wings were touching. We've commenced a full and thorough investigation and our engineering teams are performing maintenance checks on the aircraft, which for now has been taken out of service, Virgin said in a statement. BA said engineers were also looking at its plane. Heathrow said that no passenger injuries have been reported and we do not anticipate there to be any ongoing impact to airport operations.
The country's largest airline IndiGo and British carrier Virgin Atlantic on Wednesday announced a codeshare agreement. The agreement will allow Virgin Atlantic to sell seats to passengers connecting onto IndiGo flights. The initial codeshare destinations in India include Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Goa, Delhi and Mumbai. The additional destinations will include Kochi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Pune, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Vadodara, Indore and Visakhapatnam, a release said. Under the codeshare partnership, customers booking a Virgin Atlantic ticket will be able to fly on the airline's London Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai flights and connect to and from 7 additional cities in India. Later this year, the agreement will be expanded to cover a total of 16 destinations throughout India, as well as connections onto Virgin Atlantic's extensive US network operated via London Heathrow, the release said. Codesharing allows an airline to book its passengers on its part