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London — Virgin Atlantic, majority owned by Richard Branson, said demand for travel from the US to Britain had slowed, echoing a warning from its part-owner Delta Air Lines over the effect of US economic uncertainty.
Delta slashed its first-quarter profit estimates on March 10, citing weakening lower US consumer and business confidence as worries about tariffs and rising prices take hold.
Virgin Atlantic, which specialises in connections between Britain and the US and the Caribbean, said it was seeing a lower level of demand coming out of the US after a “very strong” start of the year.
“When we say signals of a slowdown in demand … we’ve had weeks where it’s been flat, we’ve had a few weeks where it’s been negative,” CFO Oliver Byers told reporters on Monday.
“We think that’s quite a natural reaction to the general consumer uncertainty there is in the US at the minute.”
Shares in British Airways-owner IAG traded down 6% in morning deals.
Overall Byers said he still expected revenues from travel from the US to Britain to grow this year compared with last year.
Travel from Britain to the US was “pretty strong”, he said. “We’re seeing corporate demand being very robust and still growing significantly.”
Virgin Atlantic returned to profitability for the first time since the pandemic in 2024, posting a pretax profit before exceptionals of £20m compared with a loss of £139m the previous year.
Virgin Atlantic was affected by the almost daylong shutdown of Heathrow, its main UK hub, earlier this month. It cancelled 75 flights as a result and diverted six.
“The cost for the home-based carriers is going to run into the tens of millions,” Byers said, declining to comment on the cost to Virgin Atlantic specifically.
Reuters
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