“As a precautionary measure, Delta teams proactively adjusted our inflight meal service on a number of international flights on Wednesday, July 3,” a Delta spokeswoman said in a statement to CNBC.
Delta has apologized to customers following reports of spoiled food in the main cabin of the Detroit-Amsterdam flight.
“This is not the service Delta is known for and we sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and delay to their travels,” Delta said.
In an email to staff Wednesday, Ash Dhokte, who heads Delta’s inflight service, said the airline was investigating what happened and “immediate corrective actions have been implemented to prevent the issue from recurring.”
Do&Co., a Delta caterer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“As a last line of defense, please inspect the food before serving and do not serve any food that may contain a contaminant,” Dhokte wrote, noting that food safety incidents on board are “extremely rare.”
The incident occurred in the height of the summer season, when Delta and its competitors compete for travelers. Airlines serve thousands of meals a day to customers, and such incidents are rare, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel consultant and founder of Atmosphere Research Group.
“Delta is taking prudent measures. In a food crisis, you don’t want anyone getting sick on a plane,” Harteveldt said. “The safest and smartest choice is to just eat pasta.”
The airline industry is facing another challenge: a possible strike by employees at Gate Gourmet, a leading provider of in-flight catering services. Federal mediators released Gate Gourmet and its unions from mediation earlier this week, paving the way for a possible strike in late July.
“Gate Gourmet serves 19 domestic stations and we are exploring strategies to minimize disruption to you and our customers in the event of an outage,” Delta’s Dhokte said in the staff note Wednesday.
