r/delta • u/Mackheath1 • 3h ago
Discussion "Write to the FAA"
Wonderful, wonderful cabin crew from TPA to AUS on 10/17 and they told us in FC that a new rule by the FAA is that your paper cup with your pre-flight drink must be consumed and collected before any movement. "Terribly sorry, it's the law now, and if your want, please write to the FAA - we have no control over it."
Not their fault at all, but I have never chugged prosecco in my life, so to everyone around me, I'm sorry about that burp (to be fair, it was an amazing burp, but I also have the emotional humor of an eight year old).
I wonder why a paper cup with water or ginger ale or prosecco is some kind of safety issue, but also I want to say thank to crew who told us what was going on. It's not a Delta thing, it's not a crew thing, it's an FAA thing, and she said, "we want you to enjoy the flight, please write to the FAA."
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u/Adam_loves_hops 2h ago
My FA this week in first announced the mew rule by following it up with a “sorry it’s not our choice but once we get airborne it’s doubles and triples to make up for it.”
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u/joystick13 1h ago
Triples? Damn that's a good FA, I have trouble getting 2 doubles on a 6 hour flight most of the time lol
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u/EasyDayBTC 3h ago
Hilarious, I took a shot of tequila out of a paper cup for the same reason earlier today
I fully expected a glass and to enjoy the tequila, nope
After I took the shot she gave her cup with the remaining prosecco back to the FA, which we got a good laugh out of because it never occurred to me to not finish my tequila. Fun way to start our vacation
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u/ANTfanclub 2h ago
Just an FYI, I am a flight attendant and we absolutely hate this new rule. We dont want to rush you guys. We rush to get the drinks out while not slowing down boarding and then to try to rush you guys to chug it just is a lose lose to all parties. We are trying to get the gate agents to make first class passengers aware of this so they don't get mad at us flight attendants when we have to grab it from you 7 minutes after giving it to you. We hope they change this rule, and yes if you write to them, your word counts a lot more than ours do.
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u/TheSpatulaOfLove 2h ago
I never take the pre flight drink unless it’s one of the monster international jets.
I appreciate the gesture, but the bottle water is fine until we get in the air.
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u/doubleasea Diamond | Million Miler™ 1h ago
We appreciate you doing the pre departure bev service regardless! Thanks for your hard work!
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u/Mackheath1 2h ago
Oh, y'all are epic looking after our safety and comfort: This was more of a thank-you for telling us about it nicely; and I will write this evening. I'm pretty sure we're on the same page, but just in case, this is definitely not a criticism of the professional work you do.
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u/ANTfanclub 2h ago
No, I didnt take it as critism. I just wanted to chime in and let you and other first class passengers know that we hate this rule and we hate rushing you guys. First class has been stripped of so many things... hot soup on domestic, portion size of food, pillow and blankets, ect. The last thing we want to do is rip a drink we just gave you out of your hands.
We are for sure on the same page! Just know we hate the rule too
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u/orlinsky 1h ago
FC is really sad now compared to pre-2020. The good thing is that competitors are getting better, but I doubt it will change anything on VA Ave for a while. AA recently gave me warm nuts to start, main tray with salad AND warm bread from a basket, a small amuse bouche, a short rib that wasn't below choice grade, and a separate desert after the meal of cheese/crackers or ice cream plus an admittedly weaker snack basket on ATL-LAX. Their service was poorer but the catering was way way ahead of Delta. I can't believe Delta slaps some celebrity chefs names on the stuff the serve or that the chefs agree to that.
I don't really miss the pillow/blanket in FC but at least D1 gets a mattress pad now. Sadly D1 is just FC catering + nuts + ice cream. IMO the turning point was cramming 20 FC seats in to almost every plane with just 1 FA there. I always sit in row 1 now if I want any service because when the FA decides to do a walkthrough it becomes a whole ordeal it seems many skip doing them. Row 1 tends to get special attention, even drinks handed out while the pilots are using the lavs from time to time to 1B/C. Well not really special just it's line-of-sight.
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u/Sea-Collection8292 Platinum 2h ago
You ever see one of those Bollywood movies where a guy tripping on something leads to a car flying through the air and a gun fight? That’s what the FAA assumes cabin service items will do if they get free during taxi.
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u/QueenPaloma83 2h ago
Would love to know what precipitated the FAA making this new rule ???
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u/dlh412pt Gold 1h ago
It’s not a new rule. It’s a very old rule that’s been recently re-inforced.
Usually they’ll send out a reminder on a rule like this if something happened. It wasn’t enough to make the news, whatever it was.
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u/Lingotes 1h ago
Probably the SCL incident a few days ago where some drunks had the whole thing deplaned.
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u/CommuterType 49m ago
It's actually a very-very old rule...
CFR § 121.577(a): No certificate holder may move an airplane on the surface, take off, or land when any food, beverage, or tableware furnished by the certificate holder is located at any passenger seat.
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u/orlinsky 1h ago
Me too. There are so many flights per day I'm sure something happened, but the problem I have is that these are always ultra-conservative and repealing the policy is almost never happening. The wax/paper cups full of pretty much anything except razor blades can't be that dangerous on taxi.
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u/TheBeatenDeadHorse 2h ago
Writing to the FAA will not do anything as they don’t really behold to public demand and aren’t interested in customer satisfaction or anything of that nature like a private company does.
Which for the most I think is a good thing, if public opinion shaped what safety rules were in place, in the no-smoking rules of the 90s and the 2000 final ban wouldn’t have gone through or been walked back and fire risks would be so much more on every aircraft
But I do think this particular situation is an overabundance of caution and the previous SOP of collecting everything before takeoff was amicable
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u/Reasonable_Health272 Platinum 1h ago
Airline pilot here - the technical thing is this is not a new FAA rule - it’s actually been around since 1992. And yea, it’s totally stupid. Not sure why Delta has recently started emphasizing it. My guess some overzealous FAA inspector wanted to make a point. Other major carriers aren’t enforcing it near as much, then again many of those don’t do PDBs as consistently as Delta. Anyway, thank you to the FAs for continuing to do this service for premium cabin passengers! I buy F when I travel and it’s greatly appreciated.
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u/Berchanhimez 3h ago
See https://www.reddit.com/r/delta/comments/1vus27s/faa_update_all_delta_provided_cocktails_must_be/
It’s required now that any airline provided service items must be stored before any movement.