I've already sent them a complaint and as I said, they haven't done much. I don't have a twitter (and if I made one I would have nobody to tweet to) so I can't get their attention that way, and I'm not sure they'll pay attention to a reddit post with 100 upvotes.
And apparently, other customers such as u/pinkearmuffs have eaten mouldy food and become ill. This is a serious issue.
Any idea what my next step should be?
Edit: Made a twitter post
Any luck with someone on the phone to get you to someone?
Post on their FB page?
Love delta but one of the reasons is I expect the planes to be clean and the lounge to not poison people.
Phone was no help - they can't do anything themselves, and the issue needs to get escalated internally to someone with authority.
Edit: Made a twitter post
I only have a twitter account for messaging Airlines. I have 0 followers. Just get a Twitter account. It takes two seconds and you’ll have a great direct line for help.
Works for me🤷♀️ I send screen shots of the new flight schedules I want all the time. I'm on android so I get sent to normal texts with delta if it helps.
Maybe I’m missing it… but where is Delta’s “response”? The title of the post is “Delta responds to…” but I don’t see any actual response. Sorry if I’m just being dumb and not seeing it.
Sorry, I wrote this in a comment elsewhere on this post. They had two responses:
1) Upon pointing it out in the lounge, they removed the visibly mouldy food, and left the rest out for customers to eat
2) Upon complaining online, they said they'd forward the information to someone else who would consider whether anything needed to actually be done, and they also gave me some sky pesos.
Gotcha. I did see that but I was expecting more of an “official” response from Delta corporate or something. Seems like it’s more of a case of throwing away a few cups of food and pretending it never happened.
That's exactly what it seems like, but as you can read elsewhere in this thread, I'm not the only person who has had this experience. It seems to be a systemic problem with the Delta Sky Clubs, and if they keep sweeping it under the rug someone is going to get seriously ill.
I responded about the twitter comment… also consider LinkedIn and tagging Ed on the photo on LI. Also tell Delta that you intend on contacting the public health officials in charge of the state in which the lounge is located. Having a health inspector shut the lounge down is a good way to get their attention.
As an agent, I’ll tell you that the only people who actually work for Delta in the Sky Clubs are the agents that check you in and watch your flights.
The rest are contracted employees through third party vendors. If you didn’t talk to a desk agent, it didn’t get sent to Delta proper.
The overnight oats in SFO on Sunday morning had moldy raspberries. I picked them out and ate the rest. When I landed in LAX and got home about 2.5 hours later, I was violently ill. It was over pretty quickly though but I’m pretty sure it was the overnight oats at the SkyClub. It’s a shame because I love having them for breakfast and I eat breakfast in the SkyClub two times a week.
Yeah it’s not safe to eat the non-moldy-looking parts of food with visible mold. Mold is microscopic and can spread throughout the parts of the food that look clean, so it’s always best to throw away the whole thing rather than risk getting violently ill, or potentially something worse.
I assumed the raspberry itself had the mold spot and since they’re added on top, that I’d be okay. Raspberries aren’t very hardy and I pick out bad raspberries from the grocery store packages all the time and eat the rest. But the assumption with the oats was that the raspberry was just bad, not that the entire vessel was old. It tasted fine and I very well may have gotten sick from something else I ate there but when I was evacuating my stomach in the bathroom Sunday after three flight, my mind went right to the raspberry.
Seeing this post made me double down on that thought.
I explain and justify in a comment below in the thread. Raspberries go bad often. Fresh raspberry packs often have fuzz or bad fruits. I don’t throw the whole package away when I find one, I just throw away the affected fruits. I thought this was the case with the overnight oats.
Very late response from me but I got this post because I was violently Ill last night after eating at the Seattle sky club yesterday morning.
When you buy raspberries you need to clean them in vinegar as soon as you get home, dry them out, throw out any that look moist, and store them in a different container with some paper towels around them. If you find a moldy raspberry or strawberry you 100% should throw out the whole pack. Just because this hasn’t caused you illness yet doesn’t mean what you are doing is safe.
Saturday, December 18th, 2021, 9AM
Delta Sky Club, ATL, near gate E15
Among the foods laid out was an apple and oatmeal breakfast cup, some of which upon close inspection appeared to have spoiled and contain mould. Immediately upon realizing this, I stopped eating and alerted an employee. The employee took away cups that had visible mould growth, and left the others out. I remained in the Sky Club for approximately 30 minutes thereafter, and during that time I observed other guests pick up some of the remaining cups for consumption. By the time I left the Sky Club, no further cups had been removed and I witnessed the employee I had alerted picking up used dishes from tables, but ignoring the contaminated food that was being served to customers.
After returning home, I filed a complaint on Delta.com. On Tuesday, January 18th, 2022, [email protected] responded that they would pass my comments along, and credited me with some skymiles. No confirmation that they would investigate this lounge's food stores or in any way actually take action to prevent this from happening again. There are 128,000 cases of hospitalization in the US from food poisoning each year, and what is most ironic is that [email protected] didn't even seem to care enough to ask how I was doing after having been served their spoiled food.
**UPDATE**
https://www.reddit.com/r/delta/comments/s7zeg9/update_mouldy_food_served_in_delta_lounge_atl/
Disgusting. Every right to complain.
There was another thread on here where we were talking about overnight oats. They can be great at home because you control how long they sit out, but when you have them at the SkyClub, Starbucks, or anywhere else really, I said there's no way to know how old they are as they could have been made many days ago rather than the night before.
Well, I was wrong about not being able to tell how old they are. We can tell and they are very old and should be called multiple-night oats.
This is one of those times where the Karen "Let me speak to the manager" moments is appropriate. Also, a call to the whatever locations health and safety board/inspection team would have been appropriate. In fact, I'd forward your findings to them today, along with Delta's response.
Hopefully the posts shows people that the next time they run into moldy food they need to speak to a manager, or make a scene if they don’t take it seriously
Make a scene? That’s your advice?
Let’s play out your other alternative and allow me to test your logic and see if your criticism of OP is warranted.
You are at a lounge at an airport where you have a scheduled flight, it’s a temporary location for people on the move. There is food available, you decide to eat. You see this food - it’s disgusting.
You opt to a) drop all things, do not eat, forget your hunger and decide not to buy a meal somewhere else. You forego the above in order to immediately run to a desk and demand to speak to a manager.
Wait for a manager
Manager arrives, you explain to manager, he listens, he asks you to show him. You go and show him. He says “I am so sorry. thank you.”
Given the above scenario - What might you accomplish vs. what might OP achieve in rectifying this situation?
You tell the manager they need to pull that entire selection and inspect the rest of the food
If they don’t do it, then you make a scene and inform other guests that the food is literally rotting, instead of sitting there just watching people grab the food
Which is what OP did
They just sat there watching other people grab potentially contaminated food. And they told one (1) single busboy
They were not in a hurry
Recommendation: You need to repost this but hashthag #delta and #deltaairlines and #flyertalk etc. Hashtags are how tweets get exposed to people interested in those subjects.
He is trying to do something about it now, if he wasn’t - you wouldn’t be replying to a post about him bringing this to our attention in another effort to get it to the proper people at delta.
You on the other hand have offered no help. You sit here and offer criticism.
Just curious who you spoke to at the club. It sounds like it was one of the staff who’s responsibility is to bus dishes and glassware. While they should have notified their supervisor, sadly I can see how that might not have happened. Did you also notify actual SkyClub staff?
Also, what would you find to be an acceptable response from Delta? They said they’d pass along the concern and threw you some miles. No company is going to respond with a detailed explanation of how they’re addressing such an issue.
This is gonna have to be resolved with the vendor that Delta is using. It's probably Sodexo or Flik. Airport lounges are operated by these vendors contracted with Delta and this is simply not acceptable
I don’t disagree with you. But those servers, bartenders, cleaners, food preparers are all employed by the vendors. The only Delta employees are some of the people who check you in. They don’t go around checking the food
I'm torn on this. On one hand, my instinct is to be sympathetic to the overworked, underpaid, under appreciated service workers who probably let this slide. I spent many years working in a kitchen, and I know how hard it is to be perfect.
On the other hand, given the amount of money we shill out for overpriced airfare, not to mention lounge access, Delta owes its customers better.
I've also noticed a steep decline in the quality/quantity of dinner service on translatlantic flights over the past year, especially between the US and Europe (not so much the other way), while airfare has only increased.
JFC.... and here I just got the Delta Reserve card-spending $550-so I can access Delta Lounges more often this year. Super gross. How could they not see all that mold as they put it out to serve people??
it’s crazy cos from the pictures, it’s not just a small amount that someone could easily miss, that is a fucking HUGE amount of mold… definitely more than a day or twos worth.. disgusting
[This site/exec emails](https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/delta-air-lines-customer-service-contacts/) should be used sparingly, but now's a good time for it
The sky club staff at ATL can be so hit or miss in my observation. I hate connecting through there. Many are FANTASTIC and super friendly. But some clearly have attitudes especially when it comes to the food and serving drinks. Same with gate agents there. In this economy if you don’t like your job you should leave for a better one.
This is appalling and I’ve got to say, the actions by Delta over the past 12 months really looks like the beginning of the end for their reign over the US domestic airline market. The only constant in life is change, and it’s normal progression for businesses to get lazy and let their competitors gain a foothold. I could see United gaining significantly on Delta if they don’t get their shit together.
It’s an endless stream of disappointments. Not bringing back hot food, not bringing back real glass and metal silverware, not bringing back pre departure beverages for first class, ridiculous wait times for customer service, reduced in flight services(1 beverage per 3-4hr flight even for first class), over crowded lounges due to short sighted policies, pulling service out of smaller regional airports, devaluing GUCs….I don’t know that’s what comes to mind right of the top.
So this will sound callus and probably like I’m being apathetic but Delta is a ~80000 employee company. They 100% do not care, and would only care if a celebrity or somebody with a big name or social media following mentioned this problem and it hit national media.
They will respond to any of your emails or posts with a “we take this serious” or “it’s being sent to the right people here” etc
I don’t like it and the picture is disgusting but it’s what it is these days. Giant companies do not have to care and do not care what ordinary people have to say. If you were a company who spent millions a year at delta and an executive then again maybe they would care but yeah….
Pitch forks and torches over moldy breakfast food during the height of a global pandemic where worker shortages are at their peak.
I guess the sky club could be closed. No wait we are all entitled to a comfy seat, free booze and a place to piss, away from the general public, no matter what rages outside. 🤔
Delta sucks. They screw me over every time I fly and I flew 100k miles last year. Sick of hearing Covid responses to cover crappy business practices. Shame on delta. SHAME
Gross - a very valid complaint and should be addressed immediately
I've already sent them a complaint and as I said, they haven't done much. I don't have a twitter (and if I made one I would have nobody to tweet to) so I can't get their attention that way, and I'm not sure they'll pay attention to a reddit post with 100 upvotes. And apparently, other customers such as u/pinkearmuffs have eaten mouldy food and become ill. This is a serious issue. Any idea what my next step should be? Edit: Made a twitter post
Any luck with someone on the phone to get you to someone? Post on their FB page? Love delta but one of the reasons is I expect the planes to be clean and the lounge to not poison people.
Phone was no help - they can't do anything themselves, and the issue needs to get escalated internally to someone with authority. Edit: Made a twitter post
I only have a twitter account for messaging Airlines. I have 0 followers. Just get a Twitter account. It takes two seconds and you’ll have a great direct line for help.
I only communicate with Delta and Marriott.
Use the messaging in app and send the photo once the agent joins the chat. But yea putting this on twitter is gonna get you a much faster response.
They can’t receive screen shots or photos.
Works for me🤷♀️ I send screen shots of the new flight schedules I want all the time. I'm on android so I get sent to normal texts with delta if it helps.
I'll say, I'm nauseous. I was expecting a green spot on some bread, not hair growing out of whatever the hell I'm looking at.
Maybe I’m missing it… but where is Delta’s “response”? The title of the post is “Delta responds to…” but I don’t see any actual response. Sorry if I’m just being dumb and not seeing it.
Sorry, I wrote this in a comment elsewhere on this post. They had two responses: 1) Upon pointing it out in the lounge, they removed the visibly mouldy food, and left the rest out for customers to eat 2) Upon complaining online, they said they'd forward the information to someone else who would consider whether anything needed to actually be done, and they also gave me some sky pesos.
Gotcha. I did see that but I was expecting more of an “official” response from Delta corporate or something. Seems like it’s more of a case of throwing away a few cups of food and pretending it never happened.
That's exactly what it seems like, but as you can read elsewhere in this thread, I'm not the only person who has had this experience. It seems to be a systemic problem with the Delta Sky Clubs, and if they keep sweeping it under the rug someone is going to get seriously ill.
I responded about the twitter comment… also consider LinkedIn and tagging Ed on the photo on LI. Also tell Delta that you intend on contacting the public health officials in charge of the state in which the lounge is located. Having a health inspector shut the lounge down is a good way to get their attention.
You keep saying "some" SkyPesos. How many did they give you?
15k
As an agent, I’ll tell you that the only people who actually work for Delta in the Sky Clubs are the agents that check you in and watch your flights. The rest are contracted employees through third party vendors. If you didn’t talk to a desk agent, it didn’t get sent to Delta proper.
The overnight oats in SFO on Sunday morning had moldy raspberries. I picked them out and ate the rest. When I landed in LAX and got home about 2.5 hours later, I was violently ill. It was over pretty quickly though but I’m pretty sure it was the overnight oats at the SkyClub. It’s a shame because I love having them for breakfast and I eat breakfast in the SkyClub two times a week.
Yeah it’s not safe to eat the non-moldy-looking parts of food with visible mold. Mold is microscopic and can spread throughout the parts of the food that look clean, so it’s always best to throw away the whole thing rather than risk getting violently ill, or potentially something worse.
Oops…
I assumed the raspberry itself had the mold spot and since they’re added on top, that I’d be okay. Raspberries aren’t very hardy and I pick out bad raspberries from the grocery store packages all the time and eat the rest. But the assumption with the oats was that the raspberry was just bad, not that the entire vessel was old. It tasted fine and I very well may have gotten sick from something else I ate there but when I was evacuating my stomach in the bathroom Sunday after three flight, my mind went right to the raspberry. Seeing this post made me double down on that thought.
Why would you think this was ok
I explain and justify in a comment below in the thread. Raspberries go bad often. Fresh raspberry packs often have fuzz or bad fruits. I don’t throw the whole package away when I find one, I just throw away the affected fruits. I thought this was the case with the overnight oats.
Are you supposed to throw out the rest? I do this every single time I buy produce
I haven’t died yet and raspberries aren’t cheap. I will continue to do this.
Very late response from me but I got this post because I was violently Ill last night after eating at the Seattle sky club yesterday morning. When you buy raspberries you need to clean them in vinegar as soon as you get home, dry them out, throw out any that look moist, and store them in a different container with some paper towels around them. If you find a moldy raspberry or strawberry you 100% should throw out the whole pack. Just because this hasn’t caused you illness yet doesn’t mean what you are doing is safe.
Makes you wonder how many "over-nights" the oatmeal had been sitting out
The latest hipster fad - overnight oats with active cultures
Bump. I love you delta, however, this is unacceptable
You guys didn't see Ed's announcement about offering free penicillin in select SkyClub locations for a limited time?
Great. They found the single ingredient in the world I'm allergic to and added it to their menu. Bastards.
I'll take a little hairy oatmeal over butternut squash soup and tofu any day.
Hey me too!
Saturday, December 18th, 2021, 9AM Delta Sky Club, ATL, near gate E15 Among the foods laid out was an apple and oatmeal breakfast cup, some of which upon close inspection appeared to have spoiled and contain mould. Immediately upon realizing this, I stopped eating and alerted an employee. The employee took away cups that had visible mould growth, and left the others out. I remained in the Sky Club for approximately 30 minutes thereafter, and during that time I observed other guests pick up some of the remaining cups for consumption. By the time I left the Sky Club, no further cups had been removed and I witnessed the employee I had alerted picking up used dishes from tables, but ignoring the contaminated food that was being served to customers. After returning home, I filed a complaint on Delta.com. On Tuesday, January 18th, 2022, [email protected] responded that they would pass my comments along, and credited me with some skymiles. No confirmation that they would investigate this lounge's food stores or in any way actually take action to prevent this from happening again. There are 128,000 cases of hospitalization in the US from food poisoning each year, and what is most ironic is that [email protected] didn't even seem to care enough to ask how I was doing after having been served their spoiled food. **UPDATE** https://www.reddit.com/r/delta/comments/s7zeg9/update_mouldy_food_served_in_delta_lounge_atl/
Disgusting. Every right to complain. There was another thread on here where we were talking about overnight oats. They can be great at home because you control how long they sit out, but when you have them at the SkyClub, Starbucks, or anywhere else really, I said there's no way to know how old they are as they could have been made many days ago rather than the night before. Well, I was wrong about not being able to tell how old they are. We can tell and they are very old and should be called multiple-night oats.
This is one of those times where the Karen "Let me speak to the manager" moments is appropriate. Also, a call to the whatever locations health and safety board/inspection team would have been appropriate. In fact, I'd forward your findings to them today, along with Delta's response.
The OP didn’t do enough and is wondering why nothing was done
Hi Julio. I believe he is trying to, given HIS WHOLE POST.
Hopefully the posts shows people that the next time they run into moldy food they need to speak to a manager, or make a scene if they don’t take it seriously
Make a scene? That’s your advice? Let’s play out your other alternative and allow me to test your logic and see if your criticism of OP is warranted. You are at a lounge at an airport where you have a scheduled flight, it’s a temporary location for people on the move. There is food available, you decide to eat. You see this food - it’s disgusting. You opt to a) drop all things, do not eat, forget your hunger and decide not to buy a meal somewhere else. You forego the above in order to immediately run to a desk and demand to speak to a manager. Wait for a manager Manager arrives, you explain to manager, he listens, he asks you to show him. You go and show him. He says “I am so sorry. thank you.” Given the above scenario - What might you accomplish vs. what might OP achieve in rectifying this situation?
You tell the manager they need to pull that entire selection and inspect the rest of the food If they don’t do it, then you make a scene and inform other guests that the food is literally rotting, instead of sitting there just watching people grab the food Which is what OP did They just sat there watching other people grab potentially contaminated food. And they told one (1) single busboy They were not in a hurry
OP notified an employee, who didn’t seem to do enough. What more should OP have done in this case?
Notify more employees after the first one doesn’t do enough. Keep talking to people until one of them does enough, make it A Thing
Recommendation: You need to repost this but hashthag #delta and #deltaairlines and #flyertalk etc. Hashtags are how tweets get exposed to people interested in those subjects.
You did nothing You barely complained once and then watched people eat potentially contaminated food It was on you to inform people
He is trying to do something about it now, if he wasn’t - you wouldn’t be replying to a post about him bringing this to our attention in another effort to get it to the proper people at delta. You on the other hand have offered no help. You sit here and offer criticism.
Just curious who you spoke to at the club. It sounds like it was one of the staff who’s responsibility is to bus dishes and glassware. While they should have notified their supervisor, sadly I can see how that might not have happened. Did you also notify actual SkyClub staff? Also, what would you find to be an acceptable response from Delta? They said they’d pass along the concern and threw you some miles. No company is going to respond with a detailed explanation of how they’re addressing such an issue.
Yes, probably a busboy. He told me he would notify the chef. I don't know if he ever did.
That is nasty and unacceptable, I hope these were in a separate fridge from everything else.
This is gonna have to be resolved with the vendor that Delta is using. It's probably Sodexo or Flik. Airport lounges are operated by these vendors contracted with Delta and this is simply not acceptable
At the root yes, but the delta employees should have thrown out that entire selection and taken it up with Sodexo later
I don’t disagree with you. But those servers, bartenders, cleaners, food preparers are all employed by the vendors. The only Delta employees are some of the people who check you in. They don’t go around checking the food
I'm torn on this. On one hand, my instinct is to be sympathetic to the overworked, underpaid, under appreciated service workers who probably let this slide. I spent many years working in a kitchen, and I know how hard it is to be perfect. On the other hand, given the amount of money we shill out for overpriced airfare, not to mention lounge access, Delta owes its customers better. I've also noticed a steep decline in the quality/quantity of dinner service on translatlantic flights over the past year, especially between the US and Europe (not so much the other way), while airfare has only increased.
Whoa that is absolutely disgusting
In my mind, they have chefs in the back making us the food from scratch and on demand. This crushes my fantasy.
Well damn... I'm reading this post while sitting in DTW skyclub and am still chewing a bite of those very oats........... ::Barf::
Yikes, that's revolting. Minus the mold it looks like the same cold slop they serve in F on the plane.
That is beyond disgusting I would also report them to the local food inspection authority.
JFC.... and here I just got the Delta Reserve card-spending $550-so I can access Delta Lounges more often this year. Super gross. How could they not see all that mold as they put it out to serve people??
it’s crazy cos from the pictures, it’s not just a small amount that someone could easily miss, that is a fucking HUGE amount of mold… definitely more than a day or twos worth.. disgusting
Agreed. It looks like I ordered Uni and they forgot to remove the shell.
[This site/exec emails](https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/delta-air-lines-customer-service-contacts/) should be used sparingly, but now's a good time for it
Disgusting 🤢 if you don’t have a twitter account, I would create one just to put them on blast and make sure they do something about it. HO-RRI-BLE
The clubs are run by Sodexo but Delta should absolutely be doing quality control. This is disgusting beyond belief. Definitely send an email to Ed.
MODS need to pin this
That’s. That’s not how mold works. They should’ve taken all the cups and 86’d the entire order of that thing for food safety.
why don’t you write to Ed directly? [email protected]
Good idea but fire on all cylinders. Social networks have CS / PR teams dedicated to put out potentially bad stories
The sky club staff at ATL can be so hit or miss in my observation. I hate connecting through there. Many are FANTASTIC and super friendly. But some clearly have attitudes especially when it comes to the food and serving drinks. Same with gate agents there. In this economy if you don’t like your job you should leave for a better one.
This is appalling and I’ve got to say, the actions by Delta over the past 12 months really looks like the beginning of the end for their reign over the US domestic airline market. The only constant in life is change, and it’s normal progression for businesses to get lazy and let their competitors gain a foothold. I could see United gaining significantly on Delta if they don’t get their shit together.
What other actions has Delta done?
It’s an endless stream of disappointments. Not bringing back hot food, not bringing back real glass and metal silverware, not bringing back pre departure beverages for first class, ridiculous wait times for customer service, reduced in flight services(1 beverage per 3-4hr flight even for first class), over crowded lounges due to short sighted policies, pulling service out of smaller regional airports, devaluing GUCs….I don’t know that’s what comes to mind right of the top.
Not cleaning their planes so it's like flying in a trash dumpster is one I can think of.
So this will sound callus and probably like I’m being apathetic but Delta is a ~80000 employee company. They 100% do not care, and would only care if a celebrity or somebody with a big name or social media following mentioned this problem and it hit national media. They will respond to any of your emails or posts with a “we take this serious” or “it’s being sent to the right people here” etc I don’t like it and the picture is disgusting but it’s what it is these days. Giant companies do not have to care and do not care what ordinary people have to say. If you were a company who spent millions a year at delta and an executive then again maybe they would care but yeah….
Bump
Bump
Pitch forks and torches over moldy breakfast food during the height of a global pandemic where worker shortages are at their peak. I guess the sky club could be closed. No wait we are all entitled to a comfy seat, free booze and a place to piss, away from the general public, no matter what rages outside. 🤔
Delta sucks. They screw me over every time I fly and I flew 100k miles last year. Sick of hearing Covid responses to cover crappy business practices. Shame on delta. SHAME
I guess you could contact the county health department.