| Sara Nelson, the head of the flight attendants’ union, leads her members through turbulent times and mounts a major organizing drive at Delta.  Photograph by Geordie Wood for The New Yorker We’ve all read the stories or seen the videos or even witnessed the scenes firsthand: unruly passengers during the pandemic, inebriated or otherwise, taking out their frustration, mask aversion, or plain rage on flight attendants. As Jennifer Gonnerman details in this week’s Travel Issue, the promise of autonomy and globe-trotting that drew many to the profession “has been overshadowed by the reality that airplanes have become an increasingly stressful place to work.” This development has raised the stakes of an ongoing organizing effort at Delta, the only major airline where flight attendants are not unionized, being led by the charismatic union head Sara Nelson, who has emerged as one of the country’s most visible labor leaders and a power broker within the industry. As Gonnerman explores, it was Nelson, through a combination of idealism and pragmatism, who played a central role in keeping the airlines in business in the early days of COVID. What can she do next? —Ian Crouch, newsletter editor If you like the New Yorker Daily, please share it with a friend. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here. | 
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