Delta is making a change to how it operates — but it may not impact your next flight on the airline.
The airline said that it was discontinuing in-flight food and beverage services on flights less than 350 miles. That includes routes like Los Angeles to San Francisco, for example. Delta’s first-class passengers, however, will continue to receive full service on every flight.
“Even on the small number of flights without beverage service, our crew will continue to be visible, available, and focused on caring for our customers, like they do on every flight,” Delta said in a statement to Yahoo.
Before announcing this change, Delta did not offer snack or beverage service on flights under 250 miles, meaning many short routes were already without onboard service. Delta reports just 9% of their flights will be affected by this change, and those flights already received an “express” version of service, meaning only water, coffee, tea and two snack options were offered as opposed to their full beverage and snack options on longer flights.
Delta is not the only airline without food and beverage service on short flights for economy seating. United only offers free snacks and beverages on flights of more than 300 miles. American does the same only for flights more than 250 miles.
On social media, the reaction to the news was mixed, with many people saying that the change made sense.
“Sub 349 miles is a short flight. Gate to gate this is like 1hr and 20min. Less in air,” one user wrote. “I’d prefer not to have the cart pushed by on those puddle jump flights.”
Another added, “You spend 2 hours in the airport, 1 hour in the plane (ground and air), another hour in the destination airport. Food and beverage service does seem a little ridiculous for these short flights. Just put a snack box at the entrance to the boarding bridge where they scan your pass.”
Others said that this was an example of an airline cutting back services without changing its prices. “Does that mean the price of the tickets will go down since we’re not paying for refreshments anymore[?]” one person asked. Another said, “Ok so can they lower my flight fare by $4 to cover the Biscoff I will no longer get.”
And a third person referred at the folding of budget airline Spirit, writing, “Damn that sucks. Glad there is a cheap ticket airline that I can use and just pay out of pocket for my in flight drinks. Oh wait.”
Delta’s decision to scale back food and beverage service comes on the heels of the closure of Spirit Airlines on Saturday, which sent many customers scrambling to rebook flights. While the Delta news will affect only a small amount of flights, just as the user above pointed out, it’s just another example of a change in the airline industry. The news also comes less than a month after United announced it would charge customers a “market disruption fee” to offset rising fuel costs.
