Changes Coming to Beverage Service on Delta Flights

Your next Delta flight could have big changes in how you get served beverages.

Delta Airlines says that it has begun final testing paper cups on transcontinental flights for possible rollout on all Delta flights soon. Delta says that it has spent years prototyping and testing a wide variety of paper cups that serve alcoholic drinks, plus have the ability to serve hot and cold beverages.

The final testing of the new paper cups started on a handful of transcontinental flights and selected other flights on December 5th, according to Delta this change to paper cups "will help eliminate nearly 7 million pounds – the weight of 1,300 pickup trucks – of single-use plastics annually."

Delta has set a goal to dramatically reduce the amount of single-use plastic items throughout its network by 2025, the airline says that since 2022 they have eliminated 4.9 million pounds of single-use plastics annually.

You would think that making the change to paper cups would be an easy one, but Delta says that they need cups that "make sure hot drinks stay hot and cold drinks stay cold while holding up to the dissolving properties of alcohol. Additionally, the cups need to be stackable within the galley carts already in use on aircraft, and be able to separate easily so flight attendants can efficiently serve our customers."

Delta also needs to consider not only regulations in the United States, but it has flights into just about every country on the planet, so the cups also need to meet those regulations. Delta hopes to have the testing done by the spring of 2024 and depending on the test results could start rolling out the new cups soon.