Delta schedules daytime New York-London flight

Delta will introduce its first daytime flight from New York to London next March. In addition, Delta and joint venture partner Virgin Atlantic have established launch dates for their new London Gatwick service from New York and Boston.

Delta's daily daytime New York JFK-London Heathrow service will launch March 28, augmenting the two daily overnight flights Delta operates on the route as well as the five daily flights operated by the Delta/Virgin Atlantic joint venture in Virgin aircraft.

The new flight is part of what Delta says will be a 15% boost in its capacity between Heathrow and New York and Boston in 2020.

The boost will be augmented by the new Delta/Virgin Atlantic service to London Gatwick from Boston and New York that will begin May 21. The partners will use Delta aircraft for Boston-Gatwick and Virgin aircraft for New York-Gatwick. The carriers announced their intent to run those routes last April but didn't provide launch dates at that time.

Also, Delta said it would begin flying from Boston to Manchester, England, on May 21. The service will augment the five routes that Virgin Atlantic flies to Manchester from U.S. gateways.

Along with having an antitrust-immune joint venture with Virgin Atlantic, Delta is a 49% owner of Virgin Atlantic. On Aug. 2, the DOT tentatively approved Delta and its partners' application to merge the Delta/Virgin Atlantic joint venture with Delta's other antitrust-immune transatlantic partnership that includes Air France and KLM.