The boss of Heathrow Airport has been forced to defend his decision to separate Virgin Atlantic from its partner airline Delta, after the carrier’s chief executive threatened to challenge the decision “extremely hard”.

Thomas Woldbye said the west London hub’s recent reshuffle of terminal occupancy would allow 2.5m more travellers through Heathrow every year and cut the charge applied to their charges by one pound at ticket.

“We have been through three consultations over three years,” he told an aviation event. “We have checked and double checked the objectives of that with our airlines. So this is a community decision and we have a big majority of our airlines are supporting this decision.”

The intervention came after Virgin Atlantic boss Corneel Koster launched a furious rebuke of the airport’s decision to separate Virgin from its long-time partner, Delta. Under Heathrow’s plans, which will come into force in 2028, Virgin Atlantic flights will continue to take-off from terminal three, while Delta’s will be moved to the hub’s fourth terminal.

The pair of carriers have had a transatlantic joint venture since 2014 and Delta owns a stake of Virgin. Separating the two operators’ terminals will lengthen connection times for passengers and make logistics harder for the airlines.

Heathrow move ‘mindless and anti-competitive’

Koster branded the move “anti-competitive, mindless [and] irrational”, and vowed to challenge the decision wherever it could.

““Heathrow refuses to engage commercially, they will hide behind regulation,” he said at the Airlines 2026 conference. “We’re going to challenge this extremely hard together with Delta. There’s no way we will ever accept it.”

“They tried to do a trick that the media in the room will recognise – which is slide it out before the Budget, so that no-one would mention, no one would notice it,” he added. “Well clearly this move doesn’t stand up to public scrutiny, so nice try Heathrow.”

Koster’s fresh broadside comes just weeks after Heathrow Airport Limited announced plans to split Virgin Atlantic and Delta up, with flights running different terminals. 

Speaking at the same event, the boss of the aviation regulator said he “would consider” Virgin Atlantic‘s complaints should they be escalated to the watchdog.

“These are serious issues that are being raised,” Rob Bishton, chief executive of the Civil Aviation Authority said. “All I can commit to is saying that we will consider… that which is put in front of us, and we will play our role.”