This airline made life super awkward for a breastfeeding mom

A breastfeeding mother has hit out at Delta Airlines after she was faced with confusion and, in her words, “a complete lack of empathy” when attempting to transport breast milk home after a business trip. 

Texas mum-of-two Vanessa Kasten Urango pumped four times daily throughout her 18-day business trip in order to maintain her milk supply. When it was time to fly home to her husband and daughters, one aged three and the other just four months-old, she contacted Delta Airlines well in advance to check their policies with regard to transporting breastmilk. In a Facebook post to the Delta Airlines page, which has since gone viral, Urango explained:

“One week before my scheduled departure, I contacted your customer service department via phone to find out how to transport the frozen breast milk home to my infant. I was told to pack it with dry ice in a cooler and check it at baggage claim,”

After a costly trip to a supermarket to find the correct cooler and another pre-flight stop at the dry ice store (at 5.30am) Urango was ready to go, or so she assumed.

“When I showed up to your ticket counter at EWR, the ticketing agent told me that I would have to pay $150 to check the $25 cooler because I already checked two other bags.” Urango wites to Delta. “In addition to this, he had no idea how to handle my cooler with dry ice. In fact, he acted irritated by it, and got two other agents involved. To say they were rude and completely lacking empathy is an understatement.”

Ms Urango was told her cooler could not be placed on the plane because the crew were unable to weigh the dry ice. Offering no suggestions, the frustrated  mum claims they left her “standing helpless with a cooler full of frozen breast milk and dry ice.”

Luckily, it wasn’t long before some more compassionate airport police officers arrived and took control of the situation:

“I cried to them out of complete exhaustion, frustration, and anger, and they helped me figure out a solution which involved tossing the dry ice into a bathroom trash can and taking the cooler with only frozen breast milk as a carry on.”

The letter concludes:

“So…here I sit waiting to board your plane…with a cooler of frozen breast milk WITHOUT dry ice. Who knows if it will even still be frozen when I arrive home in 8 hours; which basically means two weeks worth of breast milk will have to be thrown away. I wasted so much time and money for nothing.

Thanks so much to your staff for their complete lack of compassion for a tired mom who really just wants to get home to her babies.”

A Delta rep has since contacted Ms. Urango to acknowledge that employees should have been aware of Delta’s dry ice policy and acted incorrectly. a statement from the airline said: “In both policy and spirit, we fully support our customers who are also breastfeeding moms. This is not the experience we wanted Ms. Urango to have.”

The full version of Ms. Urango’s letter to Delta is here: