Virgin Atlantic are flying to Seoul

Today it was announced that Virgin Atlantic are to start flying to Seoul, South Korea. This route will be flown daily by one of Virgin's Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, featuring their 1-1-1 business class layout.

Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787 Tail

These flights will commence March 29th 2026, with flight times of:

• Departing Heathrow 9:45am, landing in Seoul 6:05am the next day.

• Departing Seoul 8:35am, landing at Heathrow 3:05pm the same day.

This route largely comes off the back of the merger between Korean Air and Asiana, with UK's Competition and Markets Authority citing concerns around the merged airline having a monopoly on the Seoul-London route. To alleviate the concerns of the CMA, Korean Air proposed divesting a daily slot to Virgin Atlantic for it to operate the route. In March 2023, the CMA approved the Korean/Asiana merger. In February 2025, the CMA granted an extension to this pending "Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited providing legally binding assurances to the CMA that it will commence operations as the Proposed Remedy Taker on the relevant routes at the start of summer 2026". Hence the March 29th start date, the first day of the summer flying season.

This was quite a clever move by Korean Air, as Virgin Atlantic is a partner through the Skyteam alliance, meaning that passengers can connect seamlessly in Seoul onto Korean Air's services. For Virgin Atlantic, they will be able to connect passengers onto other Skyteam members including Vietnam Airlines, China Eastern, China Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, and Xiamen Airlines.

Nevertheless, this represents a return to the Far East for Virgin Atlantic since ending their routes to Hong Kong and Shanghai in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Flights will go on sale 14th May 2025. We will of course keep you in the loop with the amount of Virgin Points needed to fly to Seoul.