‘I tried to stay calm': Delta Flight passenger describes moment fire broke out on flight
The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (GOAA) confirmed 3 minor injuries during the evacuation.
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'I hear someone yelling fire, so I open my window shade, and I see the engine is on fire,' said passenger Kyle Becker who was on Delta flight 1213. 'I tried to stay calm, but my adrenaline was through the roof. I stayed as calm as I could, and my instinct was to grab my things and follow directions, and it was definitely a crazy experience.'
According to a Delta spokesperson, the fire started in the tailpipe of one of the plane's two engines.
Delta released the following statement:
'We appreciate our customers' cooperation and apologize for the experience. Nothing is more important than safety, and Delta teams will work to get our customers to their final destinations as soon as possible.'
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Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
A price just for you, specifically
Imagine that an airline notices you've booked a five-star hotel, so it charges you more for your ticket than it would have if you had booked a four- or three-star hotel. That's the vision of personalized pricing, a concept that has for years intrigued companies and enraged consumer advocates. While consumer backlash may still give companies pause, some roadblocks to widespread use of the strategy may be clearing. The Trump administration introduced a plan this past week to clear the way for artificial intelligenceinnovation, reinforcing its embrace of AI and raising questions about whether inquiries into the practice that Biden-era regulators started will be given any priority. At the same time, the technology has developed at a rapid pace. 'It's going to be: Whatever you can get away with, it's legal,' Robert W. Mann, an independent airline industry analyst and former airline executive, said. When it comes to regulatory scrutiny, he added, 'from curious to none is probably the transition.' Delta Air Lines promoted its plans this month to ramp up its use of AI to set prices. And while it's not clear what data the airline is using -- and whether it constitutes personalized pricing -- privacy experts and industry analysts say many companies may see an opportunity to open what they've long considered to be an untapped gold mine. Delta has been met with swift backlash. It said on its latest earnings call that it was working with Fetcherr, an AI startup, and planned to use AI to price 20% of domestic routes by the end of this year. But it has pushed back against claims that it's turning to 'personalized' pricing. In a statement, it said it was leaning into new technology to streamline existing dynamic pricing models, which are based on market factors, not personal information. 'Fetcherr's technology has been developed to streamline processes already in place at companies and does not allow for individualized or personalized pricing,' the startup said in a statement. Regardless of the consumer data that Fetcherr is offering Delta specifically, an archived version of a Fetcherr blog post, reported earlier by the Thrifty Traveler blog, hailed the startup's ability to offer 'truly personalized' prices to travelers, based in part on their past purchases. Under the Biden administration, regulatory scrutiny of personalized pricing started to build. Members of Congress and data privacy experts have raised concerns about the strategy in industries such as groceries and travel. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission, under its previous chair, Lina Khan, opened an inquiry into 'surveillance pricing' -- another term for the use of personal data to set prices. The market study examined practices at several companies, including Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase and Accenture. 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Public backlash could still thwart AI pricing ambitions. After the uproar over Delta's public embrace of AI to set airfares, American Airlines called the practice inappropriate. 'Consumers need to know that they can trust American,' the CEO, Robert Isom, said on an earnings call. But Gene Burrus, a law and policy consultant who worked as American Airlines' competition lawyer 25 years ago, said consumer backlash was less of a concern for airlines than it used to be, in part because of consolidation in the industry. Mergers have left just a handful of major airlines, which means travelers have fewer places to turn if they're upset with an airline's pricing, he said. Will Congress step in? Three Democratic senators sent Delta a letter this past week raising concern about the airline's AI plans and the impact on travelers. 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This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
An Airline Worker Is Telling Travelers To Stop This One Luggage Tag Habit That's Fueling A Scam
If you're anything like me, one of the first things you want to do when you get out of baggage claim is rip off the ugly sticker luggage tag from your checked-in bag, or, let's be real, the carry-on you were forced to check in because there isn't enough space in overhead bins on the plane. Now, most of the time I rip them off when I get home or to my hotel. But, there have been lots of times I have ripped it off at the airport while waiting for my bus, car, or train to come pick me up, and apparently that is a big NO-NO. Recently, in the r/delta subreddit, u/Limp_Jeweler_2026, who says they work for Delta, explained why you should always remove your luggage tags at home because of a growing scam. Saying, "Good evening, everyone. I am a Delta baggage claims manager, and I just wanted to let everyone know to please start discarding your bag tags at home. We are getting an influx of fraudulent claims being submitted for 'missing items' as these people are observing who is removing their luggage tags in the claim areas and using your information to submit claims for reimbursement." They went on to add, "From my own personal experience in currently dealing with this, it is causing issues with reimbursing the real people if they submit a legitimate claim. So please be careful and don't take your tags off at the airport. They can steal enough information from that to use your travel itinerary to get paid." People in the comments were grateful for the advice: "Scams, fraud, and fuck around and find out are at an all-time high. This person is looking out for you!!! Do not scroll past this advice." —FormalTemporary2494 "Never would have occurred to me, but THANK YOU, OP!" —3ebgirl4eva "Japan had secured bag tag disposal receptacles near the secured exit of baggage claim. This explains why." —Longjumping-Usual-35 While others had even more advice about what to do with luggage tags: "I take my tags off as soon as I get my bag and stuff the tags inside my personal item. I believe my priority/business class tag had me targeted by a pickpocket many years ago." —06031eec "Just adding to this: Also, don't throw these away in your hotel room either. As a former hotel employee, there have been a few instances of fraud using bag tags found at hotels, too. Be vigilant!" —Pristine-Director716 "Not even bag tags, printed boarding passes as well. Next time you show up to your seat and someone else is there, don't be surprised, lol." —TRex2025 "Do one better. SHRED your bag tags and printed boarding passes as soon as you can after getting to your destination." —Helpful_Hovercraft25 You can read the original thread on Reddit. Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity. Are you someone who always tosses your luggage tags as soon as you get your bags at the airport? Are there other travel safety habits you follow that surprise you when others don't? Tell us in the comments below (anonymously) — you might be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed post!
Atlantic
3 days ago
- Atlantic
Decent Airplane Wi-Fi Will Forever Be Just a Year Away
'Wi-Fi is available on this flight,' the flight attendant announced on a recent trip I took from New York City to St. Louis. She recited her routine by rote, and Wi-Fi is among the details that now need to be conveyed, along with explaining how to use a seatbelt and enjoining passengers not to smoke e-cigarettes on board. But when the time came to use the Wi-Fi, the service didn't work. Eventually, enough people noticed this that the crew 'rebooted' it, after which it still didn't work. A new announcement acknowledged that Wi-Fi was, in fact, not available on this flight (and offered an apology). This was the can't even access the portal kind of failure, but I've frequently encountered others, including can log in but not connect and so slow as to be worse than nothing. And then, at other times, the internet works great—as reliably as it does in an office building. For two decades now, in-flight Wi-Fi has occupied this limbo between miracle and catastrophe. Way back in 2008, on Conan O'Brien's late-night show, Louis C.K. told the story of a man who was complaining about the in-flight Wi-Fi not working mere moments after learning of its existence. 'Everything is amazing right now and nobody's happy,' the comedian joked. The bit was never quite right—nobody was happy because services such as in-flight Wi-Fi were not yet amazing, actually. A chasm separated the service's promise and its reality. Today, 17 years later, I sense that same distance when I try to go online in the air. The matter feels more urgent now that more airlines, including JetBlue, Delta, and soon American and United, are offering free, purportedly better in-flight Wi-Fi (mainly to loyalty members so far). Air travel is neither a haven for offline delight nor a reliable place to carry out normal online life. Either option would be welcome, because each would be definitive. 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Instead, the problem is the pipe to which the Wi-Fi connects—the in-flight equivalent of the cable or fiber that delivers internet service to your house. An airplane flies in the air, and there are two ways to get the internet to connect to such a place: from above or below. At first, the only option was down. If you're old enough to remember the September 11 attacks, you might also recall the Airfone service on some airlines—a phone handset stuffed into the seatback. These phones used air-to-ground communication, meaning that the signal was sent from the plane to a relay on the ground. Airfone (and its competitors) were expensive, didn't work well, and few people used them. But that technology would be repurposed for early in-flight internet, offered via providers such as Gogo Inflight. Jack Mandala, the CEO of Seamless Air Alliance, a standards organization for in-flight connectivity, told me that air-to-ground works like your cellphone—the bottom of the plane needs a view (metaphorically speaking) of base stations from the air. That's why, for a time, you could use in-flight internet only over 10,000 feet. It's also why the service is unreliable. Just like your cellphone might hit a dead spot, so can your airplane. Air-to-ground bandwidth was limited, meaning that the service would get worse as more people on a plane used it. And finally, air-to-ground service operates extremely slowly when it sends data down to the ground—this is why sending an email attachment or texting an image from a plane can take an eternity, before possibly failing completely. Going up instead of down mostly solved these issues. Around the time of Louis C.K.'s Conan bit, airlines began offering internet service to planes via satellite communication. The improved speed and reliability allowed JetBlue to provide the industry's first free in-flight internet to commercial passengers, in 2013. According to Mandala, satellite services are easier to scale as more planes adopt them and more passengers use them. Satellite also has the benefit of being usable over water, in bad weather, and on the ground. The problem is that having viable technology is different from rolling it out seamlessly everywhere. Doing so requires investing in the equipment and service, and that requires time and money. In 2019, Delta, for instance, made a commitment to roll out free Wi-Fi across its entire fleet. Joseph Eddy, the airline's director of cabin and in-flight entertainment and connectivity, told me that Delta's effort is still ongoing. Unlike hotels or convention centers, Eddy reminded me, aircraft are highly regulated. Each type of aircraft needs to be configured differently, and a big airline such as Delta—or American, which told me it will also soon have 1,500 aircraft of its own with Wi-Fi service—requires some planning. 'We need to make software upgrades. We need to make sure we have all the satellite coverage that we need to ensure that we have enough capacity and the experience is as good as possible,' Heather Garboden, American Airlines' chief customer officer, told me. But, hold up: American is the carrier I fly most these days, and I keep finding myself unable to use the internet. Garboden confirmed that American is still transitioning its regional jets to satellite service—many are still using air-to-ground. And that's exactly the kind of plane I was on from New York. Delta's Eddy told me that its regional jets and some short-haul planes, including the Boeing 717, are also still operating on air-to-ground service. In both cases, the airlines made a deliberate choice to invest first in the routes and planes that carry the most passengers—big, mainline jets. That means that if you're flying on a long flight across or between continents, or on an airline with fewer types of planes, such as JetBlue or Southwest, you might have a better shot at reliable internet. And if you're on a small or regional jet, chances are greater that the Wi-Fi won't work, or won't work well. Eddy told me that Bombardier CRJ regional jets have proved more troubling to certify for the satellite antennas that sit on top of the fuselage, because of the aircraft's rear-mounted engines. 'You can't allow any form of debris to fly off the antenna at all,' he said. If you board a plane and Wi-Fi isn't available on the ground, that's a sign that your aircraft is still using air-to-ground service. Good luck. * * * Beyond the technology itself, the expectation of always being connected is also driving flier perceptions of in-flight internet performance. Fliers are only now starting to take in-flight internet access as a given, rather than viewing it as a surcharged luxury. Eddy thinks the tide started to turn during COVID. Even though people weren't flying as much, everyone became more familiar with digital tools—Zoom, but also Slack, Teams, Google Docs—that might once have been lesser known. When travel resumed, those expectations made in-flight Wi-Fi 'significantly more important,' Eddy said. American Airlines' Garboden added that a younger, always-online generation is buying tickets now—26 percent of the airline's customers are Gen Z and younger, she told me. For both airlines, the evolution of in-flight entertainment has reinforced the need for internet service. American delivers its movies and shows directly to its passengers' devices; once those people are already staring at their phones, habit makes them expect to be able to switch to email or a social-media app. But Delta, which offers seatback screens on most of its planes, believes that having a television in front of you also now implies the need for internet. 'If you look at the younger generations, they're at home watching Netflix and they're playing on their phone. They're doing both almost constantly,' Eddy said, adding that 20 percent of Delta's Wi-Fi customers use more than one device at a time. Competition and passenger expectations may be the key to making in-flight internet work for good. After 9/11, the domestic airline industry devolved into pure carriage, stripping away all comforts in the name of safety—and profit. That appears to be changing. Nomadix, the company that invented the enter-your-name-and-room-number hotel internet service more than 25 years ago, told me that the quality of Wi-Fi is one of the top three factors in customer satisfaction at every hotel property. That's because hotels are in the hospitality business, and catering to customer comfort (not to mention facilitating work for business travelers) is core to their success. Airlines haven't been as concerned with making flyers content in the cabin, but both Delta and American admitted that in-flight internet service is transitioning from an amenity into part of the hard product. 'You would expect that your seat is there, right? Wi-Fi has become that for us,' Eddy said. Almost overnight, he told me, Wi-Fi went from having no impact on people choosing Delta to being 'more important than flight times and airports.' For now, consistency is the missing ingredient. This is what Louis C.K. failed to grasp: The issue has never been the flying public's unwillingness to marvel at the miracles of human invention, but rather, the fact that carriers appear to make promises and then fail to deliver on them. Now that customer expectations, technological feasibility, and airline investments all align, it should just be a matter of time before the air is as well connected as the ground. But how much time? Delta initially promised 'fast, free Wi-Fi' across its global fleet by the end of 2024, but now the airline thinks reaching that milestone will take until the first half of 2026. Garboden said American is on track for early 2026. United also plans to offer free satellite Wi-Fi across its entire fleet, but offered no projected date for full rollout. Like cabin safety or timely arrival, until every passenger on every flight feels confident that the internet will take off along with their bodies and their luggage, the service doesn't really exist, because it can't be relied upon. Internet in the air is both a concrete advancement that's mature and widespread, and a conceptual one frequently deferred into the future. That future may come, and perhaps even soon. Or it might not. Just like the Wi-Fi on your next flight.
