As we know from painful experience, there were a number of inappropriate responses to HIV/AIDS in the 80s. Arguably, some of these can be explained away by the novelty and the ferocity of this new disease: in other words people were terrified by something they simply didn’t understand.

But when people repeatedly demonstrate bigoted behaviour, even after they’ve been given the facts, then that’s a completely different thing altogether.

Such is the case with Delta Airlines in the USA.

In 1985, Delta chose to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis by changing its contract of carriage to exclude people with HIV and AIDS from its flights. It took the threat of lawsuits and protests to get them to back down.

The following year, Delta demonstrated that they had learned nothing from the previous episode. In August 1986, a passenger with AIDS was banned from a flight on the grounds that he required constant care and oxygen. None of this was true but that didn’t stop the airline refusing to have him on the plane. Needless to say there was an uproar over this, after which Delta not only apologised and vowed that it would never happen again, but also declared that they would educate their staff about HIV/AIDS.

The pledge was short-lived. In November of that same year, lawyers involved in negotiating compensation for passengers killed in a Delta plane crash tried to have compensation for one particular passenger reduced. They argued (in all seriousness) that the man was known to be gay. They further argued that since he was gay he would, in all probability, have AIDS. This meant that he wouldn’t have lived as long as the heterosexual crash victims so the amount of life he lost would not have been as great as the others.

Cue yet another uproar, after which Delta apologised, said it would never happen again, pledged to educate their staff and so on.

It would be less than a year before their promises were shown to be as empty as usual. In October 1987, a flight to Orlando, Florida was carrying a number of passengers returning from the Lesbian and Gay March on Washington. Two other passengers – both straight men – noticed something unusual at the meal service. Before flight attendants collected the empty plates from the lesbian and gay passengers, they donned rubber gloves.

Delta’s initial response was that it was their staff members’ prerogative to do so; illustrating that they had learned nothing from the previous episodes. Nor did this latest faux pas trigger any attempts to improve performance: these episodes continued well into the 90s. For example, in 1994, an HIV positive man from New Hampshire was told he could not board until he covered the warts on his hands and wrists with gloves or a long-sleeved shirt. Not being in possession of a long-sleeved shirt, he was forced to return to the terminal to buy one.

While he was doing so, the plane left without him.

It seems that, even though they’d had plenty of experience with people with HIV/AIDS over the years, Delta never really found the time – or the commitment – to learn from it.