Yesterday’s big travel story was about the Delta Air Lines flight to Amsterdam that was diverted to JFK due to coach passengers being served ‘contaminated food.’ Delta Air Lines flight 136 was diverted to New York’s JFK airport just as it was about to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Detroit. The A330 plane with 277 passengers on board landed at 3:59am.
The total flight time was 5 hours and 8 minutes, which is just 2 hours and 11 minutes less than what the original flight would have been. It seemed odd to me that Delta made this diversion before any passengers got sick but it turns out there’s more to the story. It appears that not only were coach passengers fed contaminated food, which turned out to be moldy chicken, but so were the pilots.
It was always my understanding that pilots weren’t served meals from the same kitchen as passengers, just in case it’s been tampered with. However, the Daily Mail reports that a passenger Nancy Kirchoff said, “the pilot announced they were turning around because there was ‘some type of food issue and people were sick.'” Kirchoff claims both pilots and crew were served moldy chicken.
Kirchoff, 65, said, “they said they saw some mold on the chicken.” And she “asked if anyone had gotten sick and they told us no one had been affected, but the pilots both ate the chicken.”
CBS News uncovered the first images of the chicken ala mold that got onto the flight. See embedded tweet below.
See it here first…images of the chicken ala mold that got onto a Delta flight heading for AMS this week. Via the @CBSEveningNews: pic.twitter.com/Lr1lXx6PCk
— Kris Van Cleave (@krisvancleave) July 5, 2024
When the plane arrived at JFK, medics met the plane and aid was provided to 14 passengers and 10 flight crew. However, all of them declined to receive medical attention. Kirchoff said she “didn’t see anyone getting sick” during the flight and that her husband ate the chicken but thankfully “he was fine.”
Since both the pilots ate the food, Delta made the right call out of an abundance of caution because you don’t want both pilots sick with food poisoning or any other ailment.
According to CNBC, Delta has pulled “some meal options from dozens of international flights.” The Atlanta-based airline “was only serving pasta in the main cabin on about 75 international flights on Wednesday. It wasn’t clear if the menu changes would continue on Thursday.”
Henry Harteveldt, a travel consultant and founder of Atmosphere Research Group, told CNBC’s Leslie Josephs that Delta is taking prudent action and says that going to all pasta is the safest and smartest option.
Duly noted. Next time I’m offered chicken or pasta on an airplane, you can bet I will be choosing the pasta. How about you?
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Just don’t eat the fish. I learned that from “Airplane.” 😎
I’m allergic to chicken/lamb and lactose intolerant I always bring my own food.;)
I understand the reaction, but you can’t live your life in fear of what’s around the corner and is gonna get you. And you could get food poisoning anywhere, in a restaurant, at home, airplane, cruise ship, you name it.
It’s been my motto all through COVID as well, don’t live in fear. And I never got it (at least that I know of) Living in fear is not living.