Consider this story.

 

A woman was flying from Paris back to the U.S. on Delta Airlines and part of the inflight meal was a piece of fruit. She didn’t eat it on the plane and put it in her bag for later. But when she landed, she was suddenly fined $500 for that apple.

 

Why? She hadn’t declared fruit. She wasn’t allowed to throw the apple away. And her Global Entry status was cancelled. It took her congressman to intervene to convince U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to drop the charges and reinstate her into Global Entry. His argument was that the passenger wasn’t knowingly concealing fruit. It was given to her by the airline.  

 

 

What’s the lesson here? First, Delta never informed any passengers on that flight to consume the fruit in their meal or leave it on the plane. And the other lesson is when flying home, eat the fruit or dump it–no matter if you bought it abroad or if it was part of your inflight meal. 

 

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