Skift Travel News Blog

Virgin Atlantic is launching a new on-board activity pack and meal selection for its younger traveler’s this summer.

Younger guests departing from UK airports will receive their packs at the departure gate, and will include sunglasses, a sensory poppit toy, a holiday journal and an activity book with a selection of colored pencils, all created in partnership with RowType.

Furthermore, Virgin Atlantic will also be enhancing its catering offering for younger traveler’s.

The new menu will include a range of new healthy snacks, including an organic smoothie, giant cookie, cheese dippers, and fruit bowl. Additionally, chicken goujons, sweetcorn, and potato wedges will be added to the menu.

Paul Mills, head of inflight services at Virgin Atlantic said, “We’re incredibly pleased to announce our new kids’ pack and enhanced meal offering for children traveling with Virgin Atlantic. We love creating unique moments for all our customers onboard Virgin Atlantic, including our younger travelers.”

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Businesses, community activists and trade bodies in the Netherlands have come together to launch campaign ‘Red Schiphol,’ in response to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport’s move to set a cap on the number of flights going in and out of the airport.

In June last year, the Schiphol Airport set a cap on the number of passengers – 70,000 passengers a day, it can handle during the summer travel season due to labor shortages.

In February this year, the government proposed a cap of 440,000 flights a year in an effort to reduce noise pollution and to be environmentally-friendly. The move by one of Europe’s busiest airports means that airlines including KLM, the Dutch subsidiary of Air France-KLM , will have to cancel an unspecified number of flights.

Now, a collaborative effort by Dutch businesses and citizens aims to reverse the decision with the reasoning that limiting the flights to Schiphol will simply divert the traffic to other airports, and do little to reduce aviation emissions. It will also potentially affect the 84,000 jobs that could be jeopardized if Dutch air travel was weakened. 

“Schiphol Airport is a national asset that helps the Netherlands to punch above its weight in terms of global business connectivity,” said George Chichester, Red Schiphol Campaign Manager. “The airport directly employs over 2,000 people and supports many more jobs throughout the wider economy.” 

For context, prior to the pandemic, the aviation industry contributed €22 billion ($23.6 billion) to the country’s GDP and in 2019 Amsterdam was the third-best internationally connected city in Europe.

Chichester added that the increase in ticket prices caused by competition would be hard on the Dutch population, which is already facing higher energy prices and cost of living.

“Rich travelers will be able to shoulder these costs, but ordinary families will have to cut back on travel,” Chichester added.

The organization has launched a signature petition to convince the government to reverse its decision. 

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened 13.4 million people over the five-day Memorial Day holiday weekend travel period. That is the highest number since 2019, when TSA screened 14.4 million people over the same period.

But while travel demand came back strong as expected, it was not an easy weekend to fly. U.S. airlines cancelled more than 7,000 flights over the five-day period, according to data from Cowen & Co. and FlightAware. Delta Air Lines, which warned on May 26 that it would “thin” schedules over the holiday weekend, cancelled more than 700 flights.

“We expect a busy summer, and are concerned about the industry’s ability to handle the demand,” Cowen analyst Helane Becker wrote Tuesday. “Delta and JetBlue announced flight cancelations for July and into August as they try to get a handle on staffing. We also expect ticket prices to be high through the summer as demand exceeds supply. The lack of crew members means smaller cities will continue to lose service and pricing should be strong through at least Labor Day.”