You Should Be Asking For This Unique Collectable When Flying With Delta Air Lines
Did you know Delta Air Lines has its own collectable card set? You can walk off the plane with one of these cards as a free souvenir, starting your own collection to remind you of all the flights you've taken. With a shiny, holographic design, each card depicts a different plane model. They almost look like the kind of rare chase cards that would pop up in a lucky baseball card pack. Some collectors will rip open pack after pack in the hopes of landing one of those special cards, like a golden Willy Wonka ticket.
In the case of Delta's cards, all you have to do to obtain one is work up the courage to approach the captain on your way out the door. You can ask a flight attendant for permission to go back to the cockpit, and the captain might be standing there with a card in their pocket, just waiting for someone to ask. Or they might be fresh out of cards because too many other passengers have already asked. The cards are only available from pilots; if the captain doesn't have one for you, you might be able to snag one from the first officer.
You'll need to book a flight, of course, for any of this to happen. So, in a sense, Delta's cards aren't truly free, but rather, as expensive as the price of a plane ticket. Maybe that's why a complete set of all 62 cards — no doubt assembled by the world's busiest frequent flyer — goes for a whopping $3,000 on eBay.
Collecting Delta trading cards has become a trend
@sarowarrr Got my first trading card!!! Ask your pilot for one before or after your flight! #delta #tradingcards #collectibles
Delta's collectable cards have been gaining in popularity since late 2023 when a viral video from TikTok user Sarowar Ahmed alerted the greater flying world to their existence. As people became aware of this hidden perk of flying Delta, more passengers began seeking initiation into the secret society of card collectors. Captain Brian Ferguson explained to Fortune (via Yahoo Finance), "Out of nowhere, overnight, almost everybody's asking for cards, everybody wanted these."
Ferguson, a Navy veteran who served as a technical advisor for the movie "Top Gun: Maverick," fields card requests from a cross-generational swath of Delta passengers. "I get requests for cards from people that are middle aged and ages that you wouldn't think are the typical demographic for one of these cards," he said. "A lot of them are collectors, a lot of them are going through a second career in aviation. [...] About 30% of them are people in their 20s and 30s that will come up and ask for a card. About half of those will come up and kind of look over their shoulder like it's a secret and go, 'hey, is this trading card thing real?'"
All in all, Delta gave out 1.5 million collectable cards to its passengers in 2023. If anything, the cards are now an open secret among aviation enthusiasts, who have been scooping up as many as they can to complete their collection. Meanwhile, Delta ranked as one of the airlines with the best customer service in J.D. Power's 2023 North American airline satisfaction study.
The cards are a 21st-century twist on an old tradition
News of Delta's trading cards has continued to spread on social media, with collectors sharing photos and rattling off plane numbers in show-and-tell threads on Reddit. Despite their recent popularity, the cards have been distributed for over two decades. The airline's one-time slogan, "We Love to Fly and It Shows," has been proven true in six different card sets since 2003.
As far back as 1958, Delta was known for distributing "kiddie wings" to "junior captains" and prospective future pilots. You may have even had a pair of wings pinned on you when you took your first flight. At one point in the airline's history, the wings were discontinued, but they made a comeback in the 2010s, with Delta soliciting people's childhood memories of their first set of wings on Facebook.
What helps personalize Delta's trading cards as travel souvenirs is that they depict plane models "corresponding to the type of aircraft each pilot flies," a company spokesperson told Nexstar. Think of them as an alternative keepsake now that European Union passport stamps are coming to an end. A collectable Delta card might be your only physical memento of that time you passed through a particular airport on a certain flight unless you just forget to take the disposable baggage claim tags off your suitcase — the one thing you should do before checking your luggage. Gone are the luggage tags of the Golden Age of Travel, with hotel and place names stickered all over your suitcase. Delta's collectable cards are here to stay.