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 Little Red, all but three of the Heathrow slots were returned to BA and absorbed back into their operation, thus granting them a monopoly on UK mainland domestic flights at Heathrow for the first time since British Midland Airways (as BMI were named at the time) moved into Heathrow in 1982. However this was dependent on another airline not being willing to take the place of Little Red in running domestic flights from Heathrow. Virgin leased out the three slots it retained. In 2017, the remaining Little Red slots were taken over by Flybe. During its operation, Virgin Atlantic Little