Private owners of holiday villas and apartments jump for joy at the sight of a Virgin!

Virgin Atlantic announced that it would like to begin flying to European countries direct from the UK.

Paul Charles, of Virgin Atlantic told The Daily Telegraph that he sees moving into European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Menorca, Tenerife and other popular holiday rental destinations as an obvious step for the airline. He said: "We would like to expand our network and it makes sense to go short-haul into Europe. Whether this comes through acquisitions or organic growth of the airline remains to be seen.” Mr Charles said any future Virgin European network would involve planes with a full-service business-class section. He added that it was too early to predict when Virgin's short-haul routes would begin and which cities the airline might target.

This is great news for private holiday rental owners as it would bring more competition to the flight market and help to drive prices back down. When EasyJet and Ryanair first came to the market offering no frills flights to popular holiday resorts, it prompted a massive boom in the holiday rentals market, however as fuel costs went up and airlines realised that they could not sustain their business models with such low costs, both airlines had to think of ways of clawing back profits, which they have done so with extra baggage charges and options for 'first on board' etc....

The short haul market needs a new player to shake it up and maybe Virgin are the ones to do this.........watch this space for more news that will affect private holiday rentals abroad.