Delta Air Lines

A Delta Air Lines flight attendant “inadvertently deployed an emergency slide,” before departing Pittsburgh International Airport over the weekend, forcing passengers to rebook. The mistake could cost the airline hundreds-of-thousands of dollars. File Photo by John Dickerson/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 27 (UPI) — A Delta Air Lines flight attendant inadvertently deployed the plane’s emergency slide, before departing Pittsburgh International Airport over the weekend, forcing passengers to rebook and costing the airline “as much as $200,000.”

Passengers, bound for Salt Lake City on the Airbus A220-300, were rebooked onto other flights Saturday night and Sunday morning.

“While the aircraft door was being opened, crew inadvertently deployed an emergency slide at the gate in PIT,” a Delta Air Lines spokesperson said in a statement. “As a result, customers on the return flight from PIT to SLC were rebooked on other Delta flights to their destination later that evening or the following morning.”

The expensive error could cost the airline “as much as $200,000” for passengers’ hotel accommodations and repacking the slide, which can cost $12,000, according to aviation website simplifying.com. Other industry sources put the cost to repack an emergency slide on Airbus A220 models between $50,000 and $100,000.

The flight attendant told passengers he had 26 years of flying experience and admitted he accidentally raised the door handle while arming the plane for departure, which triggered the emergency slide to inflate.

“He did apologize and was quite flustered, cited over the 26 years of career, it never happened,” one passenger said.

Emergency slides are built to fully deploy in seconds in order to get passengers to safety as quickly as possible. In this case, the slide deployed against the jet bridge. That left passengers trapped inside the plane for more than an hour as engineers worked to disassemble it.

Oct. 2 (UPI) — Two planes operated by Delta Air Lines subsidiary Endeavor Air collided Wednesday night on the tarmac of New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, according to reports, which said one person was injured.

Delta Air Lines described the incident in a statement as a “low-speed collision” between Endeavor Air Flight 5047 and Endeavor Flight 5155.

Flight 5047 was arriving from Charlotte, N.C., while Flight 5155 was to depart for Roanoke, Virginia.

Delta said preliminary information shows that the wing of Flight 5155 made contact with Flight 5047’s fuselage.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the collision occurred at a gate at 9:58 p.m. EDT.

Delta said a flight attendant suffered a minor injury in the collision, while the port authority said they had been transported to a nearby hospital as a precaution.

“Delta teams at our New York-LaGuardia hub are working to ensure our customers are taken care of after two Delta Connection aircraft operated by Endeavor Air were involved in a low-speed collision during taxi,” Delta said in the statement.

“Delta will work with all relevant authorities to review what occurred as safety of our customers and people comes before all else. We apologize to our customers for the experience.”

The incident is the first to occur during the government shutdown, which has shuttered programs and left federal workers furloughed.

Earlier Wednesday, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association warned that government shutdowns “reduce the safety and efficiency” of the National Airspace System and erode safety.

“During a shutdown, critical safety support staff are furloughed, and support programs are suspended, making it difficult for air traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals to perform at optimum levels,” it said in a statement.