A passenger on a recent Delta Air Lines flight between Minneapolis-St Paul and Boise was in a stomach-churning shock after she woke up from a nap during the two-and-a-half-hour Red Eye flight to discover that her purse had been turned into a makeshift sick bag.
The woman had been seemingly oblivious to her nauseous seatmate as she tried to get some much-needed rest as she sat in the second row of First Class, missing the fact that he had been physically sick down the sidewall of the airplane.
Unfortunately, it appears that a good amount of the vomit had also landed in the victim’s purse, which had been sitting open on the floor of the cabin for the duration of the flight.
“About 5 mins before the flight landed, I pulled my open purse into my lap from under the seat in front of me and realized there was vomit in and on my purse (and now all over me),” the woman wrote in a now viral Reddit post.
“I pushed the call button, and the FA [flight attendant] didn’t budge,” the passenger continued. “It was dark, so I fumbled around while the vomit smell permeated everywhere. I started saying that there was vomit on my bag and still got no response.”
At this point, the cabin was on its approach to landing, and anything short of a full-blown emergency wasn’t going to get the flight attendants to move from their jumpseats.
Once the plane had landed, the passenger’s seatmate, who had been sitting directly in front of her, “bolted” for the door, unwilling to take responsibility for the mess he had left.
Everything in the woman’s purse, including her wallet, hat, and other items were now covered in vomit and ruined. To make matters worse, her AirPods had also slipped onto the floor and into the puddle of vomit.
After landing, one of the flight attendants approached the passenger and admitted to witnessing her seatmate vomiting on the sidewall of the plane, but said she wasn’t sure where the vomit was going, so she didn’t intervene.
Once the passenger got home, she submitted a complaint to Delta who offered her a $50 credit by way of apology.
It appears that this is the going rate for airlines dealing with vomit-related incidents, as British Airways ended up offering a passenger £50 in compensation after he was covered in vomit by a passenger who got so drunk on the overnight flight to Johannesburg that he was physically sick.
The passenger, Bruce McKenzie, blamed British Airways for the incident, saying that it was the airline’s cabin crew who plied the vomiter with 10 miniature bottles of Bacardi in quick succession.
British Airways said that its “cabin crew follow strict procedures regarding alcohol service and disruptive behaviour,” but “there are occasions where situations escalate despite their best efforts.”
Still, a $50 credit is better than nothing, which is what Frontier Airlines offered a passenger who discovered their carry-on bag had been covered in urine from the person sitting in front of them during a June 2025 flight.
Frontier’s contract of carriage explicitly states that the Denver-based carrier won’t be held liable for damage to carry-on baggage that isn’t due to its own fault or negligence, and the airline stuck to this caveat when it refused to offer the victim any compensation.
One thing of note to mention in the latest Delta incident, however, is that many passengers have pointed out that the airline doesn’t appear to be keeping its seatback pockets stocked with sick bags.
