London, UK - British leisure operator Virgin Atlantic announced that it retired its last three Airbus A340 jets as of March 9. The retirement of the Virgin's quadjets had been previously delayed to May 2020 from December 2019.
Virgin Atlantic had extended the retirement of its Airbus A340s because of the issues detected on the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines powering the airline's Boeing 787-9s.
But, because of the ongoing uncertainty around the airline industry generated by the global Covid-19 outbreak, the British carrier was forced to retire its remaining A340s early. Virgin Atlantic made its last commercial flight with the A340 from Lagos Nigeria to London Heathrow.

The Covid-19 outbreak caused a significant drop in demand for air travel around the world

Virgin Atlantic has confirmed it has been forced to operate some near-empty flights after bookings were dented by the coronavirus outbreak. It is operating the flights to try to retain take-off and landing slots at major airports such as Heathrow.
Under European law, if flights are not operated, slots have to be abandoned.
UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has written to the European Commission, asking for rules on slot allocation to be relaxed during the outbreak.
Other European carriers are also proceeding similar steps - even reportedly flying so-called "ghost planes" with no passengers on board at all in order to safeguard their presence at major hubs.