Virgin Atlantic, which counts Delta Air Lines as 49% minority owner, had to turn back in midair a London flight en route to New York after discovering its two pilots lacked the proper qualifications to fly as a team under its own guidelines.

Managers on the ground at Heathrow Airport failed to notice until after takeoff that the first officer had not fully completed his training. Since the captain on board lacked the necessary designated trainer status, the two did not meet internal requirements to operate the machine together despite both being fully licensed. 

“Due to a rostering error, Flight VS3 from London Heathrow to New York–JFK returned to Heathrow on Monday 2nd May shortly after takeoff,” a spokesman for Virgin Atlantic said, adding no U.K. aviation safety regulations had been breached.

According to the company, the first officer was trained, licensed, and fully type-rated to operate the Airbus A330 in accordance with U.K. regulations. Nevertheless he had to be replaced, since he had yet to complete a “final assessment” flight.

Although the machine resumed its course toward New York after the unscheduled stop, passengers ended up arriving at their destination nearly three hours late.

Virgin Atlantic staff has suffered heavily from the shortfall in demand from the pandemic. Nearly half of its workforce—some 4,650 people—lost their jobs in 2020, when the airline posted an after-tax loss of £864 million ($1.1 billion). The red ink was so large it came just shy of equaling the company’s overall annual revenue.

At the end of last year, management was forced to raise £400 million of fresh equity from its two owners, Virgin Group and Delta. This allowed the airline to absorb most of the half-billion in further losses that accrued in 2021 without unduly straining its solvency.

Staffing shortage

The head of the British airline pilots union Balpa said Flight VS3’s aborted first attempt to cross the Atlantic was a “symptom of the strain” airline staff has suffered under during the pandemic.

“If the support for our industry had been as generous as in other countries then the ramp-up of operations would have not stretched training systems as they currently are,” said Martin Chalk, general secretary of Balpa.

British Airways, a chief rival of Virgin Atlantic, has been forced in recent weeks to cancel hundreds of flights for lack of staff and went so far as to offer a £1,000 “welcome bonus” to poach crew from its competitors.

“We are looking at a range of temporary options to ensure we can support our customers this summer as we ramp our operation back up,” a spokesman for BA said last month after news emerged it was opening up a base in Madrid to tap the Spanish labor market.

A sudden surge in travel demand has been stretching capacity thin in other parts of the world as well. 

On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said it will “immediately” increase staffing at a major air traffic control center in Florida to handle airlines’ surging number of flights after passengers this year faced thousands of flight cancellations and delays.