Virgin Atlantic | Florida 4 Less

Important information relating to bookings that include flights with Virgin Atlantic

As widely reported in the national press Virgin Atlantic has filed for Chapter 15 Bankruptcy Protection in the Southern District of New York on 04/08/2020. This has been done to protect the airline from US creditors whilst the restructuring of the business is completed in the UK where it is based. Chapter 15 is normal practice for foreign companies to let US bankruptcy courts recognize restructuring efforts happening abroad.

To clarify Virgin Atlantic have not ceased trading or gone into administration/bankruptcy in the UK and continue to operate their flight schedule, although this is currently much reduced due to the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic.

We would kindly ask that customers do not call our contact centre regarding this as our limited staff resources are extremely busy dealing with customer’s bookings due to depart in the short term that have been affected by flight cancellations from all airlines, due to the travel restrictions in place currently.

We will be in touch with all customers in departure date order should the position of Virgin Atlantic change. However, we are extremely confident that they will complete their restructuring in the UK by the beginning of September and normal operations will resume as soon as travel restrictions are lifted.

Statement from Virgin Atlantic:

'You may have seen news yesterday that Virgin Atlantic took our next steps in the plan with a court hearing in the UK. As I shared previously, our Restructuring Plan will go through a court-sanctioned process under Part 26A of the UK Companies Act 2006.

After a hearing in the UK, ancillary proceedings in support of the solvent recapitalization were also filed in the US under the Chapter 15 process. This step in the process allows US courts to recognize foreign restructuring processes – in our case, the process we have asked to be recognized is a solvent restructuring of an English company under Part 26A of the UK Companies Act 2006. To be clear, the steps taken yesterday were not a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

We will continue over the coming weeks with the process of securing court approval for our creditor backed plan which will deliver a refinancing package worth over £1.2bn over the next 18 months. As this plan continues to unfold, we also continue to move forward with our return to the skies with the recent relaunch of passenger flights between London Heathrow and New York, Los Angeles , Barbados and Hong Kong. We will continue to re-introduce routes as demand increases and travel restrictions are lifted. As always, we make these decisions with the health and safety of our customers and employees at the forefront.'