Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, United Kingdom. The airline was established in 1984 as "British Atlantic Airways", and was originally planned by its co-founders Randolph Fields and Alan Hellary to fly between London and the Falkland Islands. Soon after changing the name to Virgin Atlantic Airways, Fields sold his shares in the company after disagreements with Sir Richard Branson over the management of the company. The maiden flight from Gatwick Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport took place
Virgin Atlantic Little Red Aer Lingus already provided competition for BA on flights to Northern Ireland from Heathrow. Little Red was later revealed to be operated on a wet-lease by Aer Lingus whereby the planes would be operated by Aer Lingus but would bear Virgin Atlantic livery. The pilots would be employed by Aer Lingus, with cabin crew supplied by McGinley Aviation. The cabin crew would wear Virgin Little Red uniforms and had training from Virgin, despite the fact that airline had not previously operated narrow-body aircraft. Virgin announced that initially the airline would operate four daily flights between London Heathrow Airport and Manchester