[This is a slightly different version of a story we first prepared for The Points Guy site.]
Airplane etiquette frowns on passengers taking home the blankets, the pillows, or the plates meals are served on. But some items are perfectly OK to swipe from your next flight.
Delta Air Lines’ ‘secret’ airplane trading cards
Delta Air Lines says that when they’re not busy preparing for a flight or flying the plane, their pilots are happy to pass out a collectible trading card featuring one of the airplanes in their fleet to “any customer that asks nicely.”
The carrier says there are 11 card types in the current collection and six total Delta collections since the beginning of the program, which has been active for more than 20 years.
Airplane Wings
If you are a kid – or an adult – stepping on a plane for the first time and a pilot or flight attendant hands you a small wing pin with the airline’s insignia on it, that’s going to make an impression.
Delta, Alaska, and Southwest Airlines still have airplane wings for kids and first-time flyers. Most are plastic, but the wings Alaska Airlines hands out are metal.
KLM’s little Delft houses
Long-haul business class passengers on KLM get to take home one of the more unusual and collectible items: a miniature Delft house.
The little blue-and-white houses are in the shape of historic and notable buildings in the Netherlands or abroad and are filled with Bols Genever, a liquor made with corn, rye, and wheat.
KLM commissions a new little house each year and releases it in October to coincide with the anniversary of KLM’s founding in 1919. This year’s house – the 104th in the series – portrays Valkenburg Station, the oldest existing railway station in the Netherlands.
Salt and pepper shakers
Airlines know that many passengers pocket salt and pepper shakers. And some carriers have fun with that.
Virgin Atlantic’s salt and pepper shakers say “pinched from Virgin Atlantic” on their feet.
And the little see-through airplane (above) filled with salt and pepper on Condor Airlines (remove the propeller for pepper) says “aeroplane souvenir” on the underside.
Amenity kits
Premium passengers on international flights are issued some swanky amenity kits.
United’s new Polaris amenity kits are filled with products from the Therabody wellness brand. And Emirates has a collection of Bulgari amenity kits for First and business-class passengers with a wide variety of upscale products, including an engraved Bulgari mirror.
