Delta news: Heathrow to Orlando flights and new Missoni amenity kits launched
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Two bits of Delta Air Lines news in brief:
Delta launches a new Orlando route from Heathrow
Delta Air Lines is launching direct flights from the UK to Orlando for the first time this winter.
There will be four flights per week for the entire winter flying season, which runs from 28th October to 30th March. Flights will depart London on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Orlando becomes the 8th Delta route to operate from the UK this winter. The service will use an A330-900neo in a four cabin set-up – Delta One Suites, Delta Premium Select, Delta Comfort+ and Main Cabin.
It isn’t clear how this impacts the existing Virgin Atlantic services from Heathrow to Orlando. It appears that daily Virgin Atlantic flights will continue, at least for now.
Delta is, of course, a 49% shareholder in Virgin Atlantic and a fellow member of the SkyTeam alliance. These flights will be codeshares with Virgin Atlantic, Air France and KLM and will be part of their transatlantic revenue sharing joint venture.
If these services end up replacing Virgin Atlantic flights then it is a negative change, because there is no guarantee reward availability on Delta and you can’t use Virgin Atlantic credit card vouchers to do a ‘2-4-1’ or upgrade.
That said, Delta already flies from Florida to Europe – with services to Amsterdam from Tampa and Orlando – and it may see this as a market it can grow. Competition will be tough, of course, with British Airways and Norse Atlantic also flying to Orlando from London and Aer Lingus competing with Virgin Atlantic in Manchester.
Delta launches new Missoni amenity kits
Talking of Delta, the airline has just announced new amenity kits for its Delta One business class cabin.
It has partnered with Italian fashion house Missoni, creating a bag featuring Missoni’s signature textured zigzag pattern on the outside.
The contents are unchanged from the existing amenity kit, apart from the addition of Marvis toothpaste. You will receive Grown Alchemist skin care products, a bamboo toothbrush and toothpaste, an eye mask, ear plugs, socks and a pen.
US airlines have historically offered poor amenity kits. The contents are still not as premium as they could be, but the bag itself is definitely a major step forward. Whilst this move is nothing more than airlines in the rest of the world have been offering for years, it is progress for a US legacy carrier.
The kits will roll out on flights to/from Italy and Paris in mid-July before a wider rollout in September.
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