Almost 3,000 jobs will be created at Gatwick during the next five years after Sir Richard Branson pledged to double the size of his Virgin Atlantic airline.

The huge expansion programme began yesterday with Sir Richard announcing a £3 billion deal to buy 13 new Airbus long-haul jets - the biggest aircraft order in the company's history.

The contract, which includes the option to buy 13 more Airbus A340-600s means US rival Boeing, which had hoped Sir Richard would buy its Boeing 777, has missed out.

Virgin, based in Crawley, will start taking delivery of the Airbus planes in 2006. The airline already has five A340-600s on order as well as six of the superjumbo Airbus A380s.

Sir Richard said he wanted to double the size of Virgin Atlantic so that by about 2009 the airline would be carrying some eight million passengers a year.

Virgin has already created 1,400 jobs this year, including 300 at its Crawley headquarters and hundreds of cabin and flight-deck crew at Gatwick.

The latest announcement means the airline will increase its UK workforce by roughly 6,000 over the next five years with most of the new jobs at Gatwick and Heathrow.

The Virgin chairman also outlined a wish list of new destinations Virgin is evaluating and to which the airline hopes to fly over the next five years.

The destinations include Melbourne, Dubai, Bangkok, Mumbai, Chicago, Toronto, Jamaica, Nairobi and Rio de Janeiro.

Virgin also intends to increase frequency on a number of its existing routes, including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and to expand services at Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester airports.

Each of the A340 aircraft will be powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines.

Sir Richard said: "The Airbus A340-600 is a phenomenal aircraft.

"This is by some way the biggest aircraft order in Virgin Atlantic's history and will allow us to double the size of the airline in the next five years.

"Our route network currently stands at 22 with new routes to Sydney, Cuba and the Bahamas to come over the next year.

"Beyond that we plan to aggressively grow the airline.

"As well as expanding key business routes out of Heathrow, we aim to build on Virgin's huge success in the leisure market by adding significant capacity out of Gatwick and Manchester."

He said Virgin hoped to compete with BA on all its profitable long-haul routes during the next few years.

He added there was a good chance Virgin would take all 13 of the options for the new Airbus planes and there had been a fierce battle to decide whether the order would go to Boeing or Airbus.

Friday August 06, 2004