An airline passenger was surprised to find that there was no screen in front of him during his short domestic flight and posted about the incident on Reddit.
Travis, 36, from Milwaukee was traveling from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to Nashville International Airport on a Delta Air Lines flight and took his seat only to find that there was no monitor in front of him for his flight.
“I was kind of shocked because I didn’t know any 737s in the fleet were not equipped with IFE (in-flight entertainment),” he told Newsweek via Reddit.
Travis took to Reddit last Thursday to share a photo of what he found, receiving hundreds of responses from other users.
“What is this, Southwest?” he wrote. “I get it’s a short flight, but first time I’ve been on a delta flight with no monitors.”
A Delta Air Lines spokesperson told Newsweek via emailthat “Delta has more than 165,000 seatback screens across our global fleet – the most of any U.S.-based carrier. While our 737-900ERs do not feature seatback screens, customers traveling on these aircraft are able to enjoy a variety of content and entertainment using our fast, free Delta Sync Wi-Fi.”
Domestic air travel in the United States reached record highs last year. According to Statista, over 819 million people travelled by plane from one U.S. destination to another in 2023, an increase from the 750.6 million domestic passengers carried by U.S. airlines in the previous year.
That beats the pre-pandemic record set in 2019, when more than 811 million passengers took domestic flights in the US. Delta was the third-leading US airline in 2023 in terms of passenger numbers, behind Southwest Airlines and American Airlines.
u/Eat_See_Trav87/Reddit
Reddit Users React
Hundreds of people shared their thoughts and reactions under Travis’ Reddit post, which received over 550 upvotes and over 400 comments.
“I fly ATL to TPA all the time, approx same flight time as ATL to BNA. Out of all my flights I’ve only seen this once. Just because it’s a short flight doesn’t mean they use smaller planes. Who knows where that plane is going afterwards,” u/Cmarn0623 wrote.
“I just flew from the Midwest to the East Coast this week. A 2.5 hour flight. The plane I was on was smaller and didn’t have the screens. I’m not complaining, I rarely use them outside of checking what state I’m flying over at the moment, just saying they’re not exclusively used for short flights,” u/MistakesForSheep commented.
“I don’t remember the last time I used the built in entertainment. I either have movies/shows on my phone or use the WiFi if available. I even have a phone holder for my phone that puts it at a comfortable level on the seat or I can use it as a stand on my tray table,” u/rcuadro added.
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