The flight, scheduled for June 20th, 2021, was announced by Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer at Virgin Atlantic in Kingstown, on November 3rd, 2020.

A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson told News784 on Tuesday, May 18th, the following.

“We continuously review our flying programme and in recent weeks have been carefully monitoring the eruption of La Soufrière volcano on St Vincent, which has had a significant impact to businesses and communities on the island.

“While the volcano alert level has been downgraded and the clean-up is underway, we have taken the difficult decision to delay the start of our London Heathrow-St Vincent services, which were due to commence next month, to ensure the island has restored services and infrastructure, which will enable us to sufficiently prepare our inaugural services. We look forward to operating the first flights from Europe to St Vincent on 13 October 2021, expecting it will be safe to do so, and welcome our customers to this diverse and beautiful Caribbean destination.

“We’re grateful to the Government of St Vincent and the Grenadines for their ongoing partnership and send our best wishes to the people of the country. Customers affected will be contacted next week and may rebook for a new travel date, all the way until 30 April 2023, accept a travel voucher, or request a full cash refund. If customers booked through a third party or travel agent, they should contact them directly for their options.”

The airline said it began the process on May 15^th of contacting all customers affected by the cancellation.

Virgin Atlantic customers can also check the status of their flights here and Virgin Holidays customers can check ‘Manage My Booking’.

Expecting it is safe to operate, Virgin Atlantic anticipates being able to start St Vincent operations in October 2021 but would encourage customers to check virginatlantic.com for updates.

The twice-weekly service will be operated by an A330-300 aircraft with 31 Upper Class, 48 Premium, and 185 Economy seats.

Tickets went on sale as of November 24, 2020.