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Airline profitable for first time since pandemic

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Signals of slowing demand on U.S. to UK routes

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UK to U.S. travel 'pretty strong'

(Recasts with CFO comments, adds IAG share price in paragraph

6)

By Sarah Young

LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) - Virgin Atlantic, majority

owned by Richard Branson, said demand for travel from the U.S.

to Britain had slowed, echoing a warning from its part-owner

Delta Air Lines ( DAL ) over the impact of U.S. economic

uncertainty.

Delta slashed its first-quarter profit estimates on

March 10, citing weakening lower U.S. consumer and business

confidence as worries about tariffs and rising prices take hold.

Virgin Atlantic, which specialises in connections between

Britain and the U.S. and the Caribbean, said it was seeing a

lower level of demand coming out of the U.S. 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," chief financial officer Oli Byers told reporters

on Monday.

"We think that's quite a natural reaction to the general

consumer uncertainty there is in the U.S. 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 U.S. to Britain to grow this year compared to

last.

Travel from Britain to the U.S. was "pretty strong", he

said.

"We're seeing corporate demand being very robust and

still growing significantly," he added.

Virgin Atlantic returned to profitability for the first time

since the pandemic in 2024, posting a pretax profit before

exceptionals of 20 million pounds ($25.9 million) compared to a

loss of 139 million pounds the previous year.

Virgin Atlantic was impacted by the almost day-long

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.

($1 = 0.7712 pounds)