‘Sickening’: Atlanta Airport Exploits Employee Deaths To Promote Delta Air Lines

The Atlanta airport serves two primary functions, neither of which has to do with flying passengers from one place to another. It’s a piggy bank for politicians and politically-favored individuals to skim cash from and it exists to operate on behalf of Delta – making the lives of competitor airlines difficult (such as in the scheduling of gates), blocking a second Atlanta airport, and promoting their corporate overlord.

So when two Delta Air Lines employees were tragically killed on Tuesday at an airport maintenance hangar following a tire explosion, the airport took to Twitter to express condolences using Delta’s corporate slogan “keep climbing.”

When I first saw this I wondered whether someone on the airport’s social media team was being sarcastic – pointing out how the airport acts as an arm of Delta even in tragedy? But the post remains up a day later.

This is way more than tone deaf. It appears to be a window into the airport authority’s Stockholm Syndrome.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. The tweet isn’t even the worst writing I’ve seen about it:

    menafn.com/1108610566/Boeing-tire-blast-murders-two

  2. It is regrettable to learn about a premium aircraft tire exploding, resulting in the deaths of two Delta Air Lines Atlanta Technical Operations workers. Rest in peace Luis and Mirko.

  3. @Joe: even tires get in on the act of murdering people in Atlanta!

    Sorry to poke fun, but some of what’s published out there deserves all the ridicule it can get.

  4. @Joe that “article” you posted is incredibly obtuse. Tires murdering people? And then it blames Boeing? Look, I’m no Boeing fanboy, but that’s just silly. They don’t make nor do they maintain the tires.

  5. @RF, I work in marketing. And while I won’t justify what a lot of people do in my field, I will say that nearly any sane marketer would never have advised this messaging. It’s now taken down, probably as a result of a marketing or communications exec at Delta who called the airport to ask wt* they were thinking.

  6. Eh, it was a stupid mistake by somebody who isn’t particularly good at their job. It’s not “sickening.” Just stupid.

  7. I just love the nitwits/trolls that speculate a “stupid mistake” or “not particularly good at their job”, blaming Boeing, “sue Delta out of business”, “flown through Atlanta not surprising (what does that mean??). They have to put their idiotic remarks to show their stupidity. OSHA, the FAA and other accident investigation teams will find the cause. Hopefully, this won’t happen again. Then, one should look at the definition of murder, “Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse.” Ignorance can be fixed with explanation. Stupid remarks…forever.

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