The USA is continuing to be Virgin Atlantic Cargo’s largest market, something it expects to continue as it increases services, according to senior vice president, John Lloyd.
Lloyd tells Air Cargo Week: “2015 was a significant year of network change that saw us grow our destinations and total capacity to and from the US.”
In 2015, Virgin started flying to Detroit, and increased services to and from Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.
It also offers flights to Boston, Newark, Washington, Orlando, Miami, Las Vegas and seasonal services to Chicago.
Virgin, like many companies, saw a noticeable boost at the start of 2015 due to the US West coast seaport strike.
Lloyd comments: “The West coast port strike obviously contributed to a strong start to last year as customers routed cargo to the US any way they could and this continued into the second quarter before the market returned to a more normal level.”
Lloyd says Virgin transports a lot of high value perishables to the US such as Scottish and North Sea salmon, and high end cars.
Pharmaceuticals to and from North America continue to prove lucrative and e-commerce continues to rise.
“The US is our biggest market and we are also excited about the further potential of our transatlantic partnership with Delta Air Lines and the opportunities this brings for us and our customers.”
“The currency situation will have a strong impact in 2016 by boosting exports from Europe but putting further pressure on import volumes from the US We expect to see single digit growth,” he adds.
