Airline passengers behaving badly has reached a new peak.
A Delta Air Lines flight was forced to return to Amsterdam Tuesday after maggots began falling from the overhead bin when a passenger packed rotting fish in their carry-on bag.
The carrier did not directly refer to the fly larva, but cited an “improperly packed carry-on bag” as the reason for the flight deviation. Social media posts told the rest of the story.
“really lovely to be 2 hours into an 8 hour @Delta to amsterdam and find out there is rotten fish and maggots hitching a ride with us,” wrote one passenger on a private post on Twitter/X, as quoted by the Independent.
Flight 133 was scheduled to fly from Amsterdam to Detroit. Passengers on the flight were reportedly given 8,000 Sky Miles, a $30 meal credit and were put in a hotel room, if they were delayed overnight.
In a statement to Fortune, Delta said, “We apologize to the customers of Flight 133 as their trip was interrupted due to an improperly packed carry-on bag. The aircraft returned to the gate and customers were placed on the next available flight. The aircraft was removed from service for cleaning.”
As baffling as the concept of bringing rotting fish in your in-flight luggage might be, it’s just the most recent example of questionable behavior by airline passengers in the past couple of years.
Last year saw a rise in cases of air rage as flights were more crowded, including one passenger who tried to open a plane’s emergency door and attempted to stab a flight attendant with a broken spoon. Some carriers stopped serving alcohol to passengers in 2022 to avoid in-flight incidents, during a year that saw many flight attendants assaulted by unruly flyers.
