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Delta Air Lines had to suspend hot meal service on more than 200 flights out of its Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport hub over the past several days because of a “food safety issue.” Delta said that operations from the facility were shut down and hot food will be managed by other kitchens. “During a recent inspection at a DTW kitchen, Delta’s catering partner was notified of a food safety issue within the facility,” Delta said in a statement on Sunday. “Delta and its catering partner immediately shut down hot food production and subsequently suspended all activity from the facility. Hot food and other onboard provisioning will be managed from other facilities.” A message to a flight crew on Friday said first-class meals couldn’t be loaded because of “an unforeseen supply chain issue” and that the flight would be stocked with additional snacks. The Food and Drug Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday. The carrier said no employee or customer illnesses were reported, and that it gave affected customers travel vouchers or frequent flyer miles as compensation. Airlines serve thousands of meals to passengers a day, generally through third-party catering kitchens.<br/>

Delta Air Lines plans next summer to resume flights from Los Angeles to Shanghai and to launch a route from Minneapolis to Copenhagen, part of the airline’s broader network shuffle. The Atlanta-based carrier had eliminated all its flights to China in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic and has only resumed daily flights to Shanghai from Seattle and Detroit. Delta said on 11 October that in June 2025 it will reinstate its Los Angeles-Shanghai route, with plans to connect the cities three times weekly using Airbus A350s. The airline holds authorities from the DOT to operate 42 round-trip flights weekly between the USA and China. Those include daily flights to Shanghai from Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles and Seattle, and daily flights Beijing from Detroit and Seattle, according to DOT filings. Also on 11 October, Delta said that in May 2025 it will begin its first-ever flights between its hub at Minneapolis-St Paul International airport and Copenhagen, operating that route three-times weekly with A330s. Delta added that flight after on 25 September finalising a codeshare agreement with SAS, under which the airlines will sell seats on each other’s flights. Also, on 1 September, SAS became a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance alongside Delta. Last week, Delta also revealed a planned Atlanta expansion that will see it operate as many as 968 daily departing flights there next summer – 75 more than last summer, and a record for the airline, Delta says. That expansion will see Delta next summer launch new routes from Atlanta to Naples and Brussels, and add more flights on existing routes to Athens, Barbados, Barcelona, Cancun, Curacao, Toronto, Rome and Zurich.<br/>

Taiwan's China Airlines is not facing any political pressure on its decision about whether to buy Boeing or Airbus aircraft for a refreshment of its long-haul fleet, the company's chairman said on Saturday. Taiwan's largest carrier has been weighing Boeing's 777X and the Airbus A350-1000 as replacements for its fleet of 10 Boeing 777-300ERs, mostly used on U.S. and some high-density regional routes, according to industry sources. China Airlines Chairman Hsieh Shih-chien told reporters the company was still in the process of evaluating which aircraft to take and, asked if there was any political pressure on the decision, replied "no". "When it comes to buying aircraft, it is only China Airlines ourselves who makes the assessment. I want to clarify this," Hsieh added. Multibillion-dollar deals for new aircraft often have to take political as well as business considerations into account - especially in the case of Taiwan, given its international situation and pressure it faces to give in to China's sovereignty claims, which are rejected by the democratically elected government in Taipei.<br/>