Virgin Atlantic to restart flights from London to Cancun

Virgin Atlantic is to restart flights from London to Cancun in Mexico, while also pushing back the resumption of services to Tel Aviv and Accra in Ghana due to the lack of engine availability.

The UK airline will operate three flights per week between Heathrow and Cancun from 19 October 2025. It will be the first time that Virgin has flown to Cancun since early 2019 when its flights operated from London Gatwick.

But Virgin Atlantic has also announced that the restarting of services from London to both Tel Aviv and Accra will be delayed until the winter 2025-26 season, which starts on 26 October 2025.

“It’s been necessary to make these changes to ensure our operation is resilient, while it is impacted by the reduced availability of Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, which are fitted to our Boeing 787-9 aircraft,” said the airline in a statement.

“Our teams are working closely with our partners at Rolls-Royce on solutions to minimise disruption to our flying programme, but some amendments are required. We’d like to apologise to affected customers and remain fully committed to both routes.”

Virgin Atlantic has yet to resume services to Israel after initially suspending flights from Heathrow to Tel Aviv in October 2023 when war broke out between Israeli forces and Palestinian group Hamas. The carrier had previously suspended flights to Tel Aviv until the end of March 2025.

The airline had also been due to restart flights from Heathrow to Accra in May 2025 for the first time in 12 years.

Virgin plans to use Airbus A350-1000 aircraft on the Heathrow-Cancun route, which includes economy, premium economy and Upper Class cabins. Flights will operate on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Juha Jarvinen, the airline’s chief commercial officer, said: “Our new route also offers increased connectivity to the region with our codseshare partner LATAM and SkyTeam partner Aeromexico.”