Delta Air Lines Scolded Passenger For Stealing Fruit – But Sky Club Members Are Fighting Back – View from the Wing

Delta Air Lines Scolded Passenger For Stealing Fruit – But Sky Club Members Are Fighting Back

by Gary Leff on March 26, 2024

Traditionally airport lounges have offered snacks, but you’re not supposed to take food with you for the flight. That’s to limit costs. Hotels with club lounges frequently have drinks, but many make a point not to offer bottled water – knowing that their beverage costs would skyrocket.

Without to go containers, though, passengers and hotel guests get creative. Where there’s free food, some people are going to go wild.

• Among U.S. airline lounges, Delta does the most with catering. There are frequently both hot and cold options, and several stations of each. So is it surprising that customers are taking food home with them to eat later as dinner, and filling up on snacks to fuel their upcoming Netflix binge?

• The food doesn’t even need to be good. Decades ago United Airlines passengers would stuff copious amounts of packaged Tillamook cheese into their laptop bags when leaving the Red Carpet Club.
• And here’s video from the British Airways Galleries First lounge at London Heathrow where two passengers reportedly made several trips to take 20 or more drink cans and five bags of chips.

Capital One really bucked this trend, introducing high quality grab and go food and drink in their lounges – placed right at the front of the lounge. We’ve seen others pick up on this idea as well. United Airlines now has a grab and go lounge concept, basically grab some food instead of using a lounge, pioneered last year in Denver.

Love this concept from @united at Denver. Their “Fly” lounge is designed for you to “steal” stuff from! Fridges full of snacks and drinks, a coffee bar, and a few tables. Stuff is designed for grab and go. Great if you’re on a short connection. pic.twitter.com/ZvfRtak3yz

— Paul Lucas (@paul_winginit) September 5, 2023

Delta Air Lines will let you take away food if you have access but agree not to visit a Sky Club, to help with lines.

But if you go inside the lounge the policy is strict – no takeaway. One customer learned this the hard way, scolded by staff for taking a banana with them when they left the lounge in Minneapolis. (HT: Eye of the Flyer)

I got reported for trying to take a banana out of the lounge! Someone tell me this is all a nightmare and my $700 a year isn’t a complete waste. I just wanted a banana

Sky Club memberships are expensive. Bananas are not. If you want an ‘executive membership’ that allows you to bring in guests without charge, that’s now $1,495. And paid memberships are only available to elite members of the SkyMiles program, so you’re probably profitable to Delta in other ways, too.

Delta flyers are now literally offended by this incident. And they’ve been striking back – stealing bananas from Sky Clubs around the country and posting selfies with their ill-gotten loot.

I made sure they saw me take it
byu/Apprehensiveduckx indelta

Who did this? Hilarious banana drama continues at MSP Sky Club.
byu/loonsjalkapallo indelta

Had it whipped out the entire time!
byu/froztyguyz indelta

I wonder if this strict enforcement comes as a reaction to an earlier customer movement, that was itself a reaction to the high cost of membership and Delta’s planned limits on access for premium American Express cardmembers.

One woman shares video of herself taking salami: “If you get 36 slices of salami per Delta sky club lounge visit, you break even on your annual fee after just 30.5 lounge visits.”

“Delta executives hate this 1 money saving trick,” she says. Except you’re going to want to break even far faster if this calculation is a concern to you. Bring plastic bags. Wait around for trays to be refilled several times. And load up on around 80 slices of salami?

@meat.slut Delta executives hate this 1 money saving trick #meat #traveltiktok #travel #foryoupage #fyp #meatslut @delta ♬ Little Bitty Pretty One – Thurston Harris

In the hidden war of tit-for-tat inside the Delta Air Lines Sky Club, Delta raises prices and then customers try to get their money’s worth. Delta responds by enforcing its rules against passengers taking food from the club, but that only encourages the practice further. When will the madness stop?

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