Tuesday’s Delta flight 133 from Amsterdam to Detroit was forced to turn around an hour into the trip when maggots fell from an overhead bin onto passengers seated in economy.
Apparently a suitcase in the overhead bin contained rotten fish. It opened, and maggots spilled out. The fish was only wrapped in a plastic bag from a grocery store in the customer’s rollaboard. It wasn’t even packed in ice.
A passenger on the aircraft reports that those were were delayed away from home were provided with a hotel room for the night and a $30 meal voucher. Customers were given 8,000 SkyMiles, which is often about one-tenth the cost of a domestic flight. You need to bathe in maggots on Delta 10 times to earn a free trip. The incident is presumably exempt from EU261 compensation.
The Fish In Amsterdam Is So Good You Want To Take Some Home
According to one passenger,
My family and I were in the row directly in front of the maggots. The lady right behind us told the flight attendants the maggots were falling on her head. Ugh. I turned around and they were wiggling around on the seat They moved us further in front though. One of our carryon bags was right nearby the disgusting one so at the end of the flight when I went to get it after checking it over thoroughly, the passenger in question was still sitting there and didn’t exit the plane. So. Assuming some kind of consequences but unclear what. Also apparently it was wrapped in newspaper. Absolutely gross.
This dude literally messed up the travel situations of hundreds of people At this exact moment, we have 5 suitcases that didn’t make it and are still chilling in Amsterdam. Thanks dude.
Another passenger shared,
I was in the row where the maggots were falling and alerted the staff to it alongside the lady on the opposite end of the row. I exited the plane at the same time as the culprit and he was on the same bus with me to the airport afterward. He was seated separately for a while at the service area we were all directed to, but at least he wasn’t detained on the plane itself.
My first thought was that since it was a Delta flight, they must have been premium maggots. Then it occurred to me that the maggots fell down on the heads of economy passengers. Just another way for Delta to get customers to buy up to premium products.
The aircraft was cleaned, and the suitcase holding the fish (and maggots) was burned.
Unbelievably disgusting, it’s hard to imagine how the passengers affected must have felt. That said, before getting upset with Delta, you have to ask yourself some questions: Is it reasonable to expect that Delta was aware of the maggots in the overhead bag ? Once the incident occurred, did the Delta Flight Crew act responsibly in mitigating it as best as they could ? If Delta had absolutely nothing to do with the presence of the maggots, and also acted responsibly in mitigating the situation onboard, what else could you reasonably expect them to do ? Sounds like another chapter of Passengers Behaving Badly, although we sure haven’t seen this one before !
Before getting upset at the passenger please be advised:
1. It’s very unlikely the passenger had intent to cause a flight diversion.
2. The United States is an extremely punitive culture that has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
3. Americans are often looking to blame any entity, even Delta, other than themselves.
4. If you want to guarantee a non-diverted flight, there is no such thing, but you can do risk mitigation like Taylor Swift: charter 2 private planes.
5. Americans like the whiny reddit commenters in the linked thread want the passenger to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for this diversion, which would likely effectively bankrupt this person and cause this person to be unable to provide for themselves in a society where, unlike every other developed country, even basic healthcare comes at a cost.
Whiny complaining Americans are calling for a passenger, who had no intent to divert a flight, to pay up what is probably that person’s life savings, and to be in poor health due to lack of good healthcare, simply because a few maggots dropped on a few people’s heads causing absolutely no lasting damage.
Shame on American society. What needs to happen is a shift to a blameless model, as how tech companies operate when something goes wrong. We don’t blame an engineer for shipping a broken line of code. We find opportunities in the process to prevent broken code from shipping.
If you are calling for the passenger to bankrupt themselves to “make up” for the inconvenience caused, you are a very unkind and punitive person. You want someone to lose their healthcare. Shame on you.
This is nightmare material. And nobody smelled the rotten fish?
Something is fishy on this flight
@Dignity
Sometimes the stupid tax can be very expensive. This person should pay the cost of the diversion if it bankrupts them then it’s a valuable life lesson. Lessons learned in blood are best remembered. Anyone stupid enough to bring a maggot laden fish onto an aircraft really should pay the price.
The biggest insult is giving everybody 8000 sky pesos. What is that now? 7 bucks? I got 15,000 last year for a busted IFE.
@Dignity – this is the most ridiculous comment I’ve ever read.
Imagine this plane flew to Australia or New Zealand.
They would have burned the plane.
@Dignity — There are various exemptions in bankruptcy in the US, so the effects on the tortfeasor wouldn’t be as bad as you imply.
Somebody has to be left holding the bag for the losses (in time and resources) occasioned by this guy. Who are you nominating?
Premium
Dignity is sounding awful defensive in here.
Just got in from Amsterdam?
Just sayin
If nothing else the disgusting Delta program has an upgraded name
from Sky Pesos to Sky Maggots
No insult intended to the Maggots as at least they are worth more
@dignity….your comments remind me of many who believe another person’s loss is ‘no big deal’ until….drum roll….it happens to them personally. These types of people often will respond by denying this truth until it actually happens.
It is time for a revolution against the “service” of airlines. Let’s all agree NOT to fly for one month in 2024. This will get the airlines’ attention.
I deliver bags as gig sometimes and I won’t even consider deliveries to a heavily West African suburb of my city after several nightmare bags like this.
The bags are usually extremely heavy and packed inappropriately and often stink, have insects and other issues. I don’t know how rampers do it. It is not worth the money to me.
I can totally identify with the other passengers.
Dignity, you are the only person making any sense. I am American but have lived most of my life in a territory. It is so incredibly bizarre how fragile Americans are. Bugs dropped on your head on a flight? Not ideal, obviously. But the level of outrage here is just so silly. Brush the bugs off and go on with your lives. And let this passenger go on with his. Life throws challenges. Get over it!
Dignity thinks that the perp is the victim.
Gary said, “Customers were given 8,000 SkyMiles, which is often about one-tenth the cost of a domestic flight.” As a bonus, Delta passengers also received a $30 meal voucher. In some countries, free-range live organic maggots are part of a nutritious and savory meal. Complimentary Delta Air Lines maggots included with a $30 meal voucher helps to demonstrate that Delta gets you there with care.
You are not supposed to bring raw fish to USA anyway – customs will surely stop you – what was the passenger even thinking?
AJLondon,
Personal quantities of imported frozen raw fish sometimes are allowed into the US, even when the raw fish is no longer frozen. They are supposed to be declared to CBP, but it’s not like with passengers’ meat imports over which the CBP is much more sensitive.
Even if this were a domestic flight, this kind of thing with rotting fish and maggots could happen. Imagine the prank that it could have been on flights into DCA and IAD right before January 6th 2021: Maggots for M A G A flyers.
@dignity your comment about other countries not having a health care cost issue is ridiculous. Most of those countries that have universal care come with extraordinarily high income tax rates. The citizens of these countries do not have free health care they have prepaid for their own health care in advance.
@Susan: The damages for the bulk of the passengers on the plane come from the decision to divert, not being in the proximity of maggots per se. For instance, diversion would often cost me 1/2 day of work, and so I wouldn’t get paid or would have to lose additional leave time (I cannot work on planes or in airports due to security requirements). You may disagree with Delta’s decision to divert here, but it seems clear that the primary cause of the damages is this person’s poor decision to bring maggots on board.
(Also, I think Delta practically had to divert here — “we kept going even though the affected pax couldn’t shower” is a PR disaster waiting to happen.)
Dignity, you are the problem.
@Dignity: I see the problem here. We Americans believe in personal individual responsibility for our actions. We’ve created the richest and freest country in the history of the world. Your country and culture believes in collective responsibility. Individual actions may not be punished, but they’re not rewarded either. Your country is not as free and rich as mine, and never will be.
The indignity of the situation is just horrible.
Only maggots fly Delta
No Maggot response from Tim ???
According to Fox 2 Detroit, when the maggots fell over the woman “during the Delta Air Lines flight to Detroit, ‘she was freaking out.” Flight crew took the maggot infested passenger baggage to the back of the aircraft. Some people wondered what Delta did with the homeless maggots. For your viewing enjoyment, here is a link to the video report about the infested Delta Air Lines flight. https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/maggots-fall-on-woman-during-delta-flight-to-detroit-she-was-freaking-out
@dignity I forgive you for being totally ignorant about the United States health Care system. FYI the USA has universal health care just like almost every other developed country. Just because it doesn’t mirror what country you’re in doesn’t mean we don’t have it. No one dies from lack of health care. Either you pay for it if you can afford it or pay for insurance if you can afford it or barring those two the taxpayers are on the hook for your health care. The perpetrator in this matter would never be without health care assuming he lives in the USA.
To assume no one was harmed is asinine. Imagine all the wages and professional fees lost. In my case it would cost me about $1,500 bucks to come in a day late assuming I was working the next day. My guess is there were doctors on that plane that had surgery schedule for a patient the next day. Can’t imagine what they would have lost. My vote is for the perpetrator to be required to clean planes on his off time for the next year. If he can’t get a clearance then I would suggest that they punish him by making him work on a garbage truck detail on his off time for the next year.
I think Dignity’s comment was meant as a joke.
This is most likely a transfer from Africa or maybe from Turkey , North Africa , maybe India but I could def see this as a transit passenger bringing back something they shouldn’t have .
Stop complaining people. The passenger made a big mistake. US Customs probably won’t except it without paying the fines. Might pay fines in Amsterdam. The passenger should pay the cost of the delay
Interesting how Tim Dunn is suddenly missing.
Delta delivers premium experiences in the sky for its discerning, elite guests.
@ Bestoink Dooley
You are horribly misinformed. Thousands of Americans die every year due to lack of access to healthcare. Emergency room treatment will not be denied but cancer treatments, expensive drugs, etc. are denied all of the time. Get educated!