How Delta turned TSA chaos into a brand advantage

As brand obsessions go, our collective love/hate relationship with airlines may be one of the most passionate and unique. It’s a perfect storm of time pressure, cost, emotional stakes, and a complete lack of control as a customer.  An airline’s product is the experience, and that experience has a laundry list of potential pain points—check-in, lost luggage, boarding, seat comfort—that can ruin the entire thing. Now, the U.S. government is throwing a shutdown-size wrench into the mix. Due to a partial government shutdown, funding for the Transportation Security Administration has been paused. TSA workers have not been paid for more than a month, leading to staffing shortages at some airports. As both sides of the aisle point fingers and try to find a compromise, line-ups at airports are snaking so long that many airports have stopped even trying to post estimated wait times for travelers. On March 25, acting TSA head Ha Nguyen McNeill told Congress that air travelers are expe