On the return flight from Boston Logan International to London Heathrow Airport, Virgin Atlantic was once again the transatlantic flight operator. This flight originated in the morning, so the menu items differed from the outbound evening flight towards Boston, but allow for a good comparison between the morning and evening food options. Below documents how this Virgin Atlantic flight dealt with catering for those travelling with allergies.

At the start of the flight, food menus were once again handed out to all of the passengers, which set out the following available food items:

• For Breakfast: A light Breakfast, consisting of an “Aussie” bar and yoghurt
• For the main menu: Italian sausage marinara, Chicken Malvani or Roasted garlic and tomato gnocchi (Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian)
• For the pudding: Salted caramel CakeLove

Again, a huge highlight of the menu was the use of icons to indicate whether food choices were Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian, Vegan, had no gluten ingredients, or had no dairy ingredients.

Within the Breakfast box, the Nature Valley “Aussie Bar” listed Soy as an allergen and may contain Peanut, Almond or Pecan allergens. The yoghurt listed Milk as an allergen.

Of the main menu items the Chicken with Rice and Malvani Sauce was chosen. This was provided with an allergen list of Milk, Soy and Coconut.
Two biscuits were provided, which contained Wheat, Milk allergens.
And the Salted caramel CakeLove pudding had ingredients which listed Milk, Eggs and Wheat as allergens.

In a similar fashion to the outbound flight, I was impressed by the level at which Virgin Atlantic catered for those travelling with allergies. The fact that each of the food items were individually packaged and labelled with allergen information, coupled with the presence of an allergen menu and staff that are happy to run through the allergen menu with a concerned passenger make it more comfortable if travelling with allergies.