Mr. Joe Thompson:

The short answer is "absolutely". I have been with Virgin Atlantic for a number of years and in that time I have been a country manager in India and Hong Kong where our entire remit is around creating demand from those markets to visit the UK and onward connections with partner carriers. We work closely with a number of tourist boards and tour operators to come up with joint promotions to develop and build those markets. We want to bring customers into those markets, as well as providing choice for consumers who are travelling on outbound itineraries.

The mix of inward and outbound varies significantly by route. On a route like the Caribbean or some of our more leisure-oriented destinations, travel will mainly be outbound. However, it is a much more even flow of traffic to destinations like Los Angeles or Chicago.