Posted on 07/01/2022 9:46:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The cost of a seat on a commercial airline has been going up a fair bit lately, though not as quickly as the inconvenience and frustration levels have risen. But some seats are clearly worth more than others, at least at Delta Airlines. Earlier this week, a Delta flight was scheduled to go from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Minnesota. But when passengers were ready to begin boarding the plane, it quickly became obvious that Delta had overbooked the flight. They began asking for volunteers to move to a later flight and when they didn’t hear from anyone willing to give up their seat, they started sweetening the offer. Soon the price went up to ten thousand dollars and the offer was for cash, not credit toward future flights. Passengers were told that if they used Apple Pay, they could receive the money immediately. They soon had the required number of volunteers and the flight departed only twenty minutes later than its scheduled time. (Yahoo)
Passengers on a Delta flight from Michigan to Minnesota say that the airline offered them $10,000 cash to give up their seats on an oversold domestic flight.
In the end, the hour-long flight departed just 20 minutes later than scheduled from Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, according to Cirium’s flight tracker.
Jason Aten, a tech columnist at Inc. magazine, boarded the plane with his family and was waiting for it to leave the gate when a flight attendant came over the intercom, he wrote earlier this week. The crew was looking for eight volunteers to give up their seats on the apparently oversold flight, offering them $10,000 cash each.
This weekend is expected to be one of the busiest travel periods since the start of the pandemic, so we’ll probably be seeing more stories like this one. For once, we’re not talking about the pilot shortage, but that’s far from the only thing wrong with the airline industry these days.
Of the many annoying things that the airlines do (and they do plenty of annoying things), overbooking flights is among the most infuriating. And the airlines were doing this long before the pandemic. In their efforts to squeeze every last dollar out of the public and fill every seat, the major airlines sell more seats than they actually have. This is supposedly done to maximize capacity in the case of cancellations.
But if nobody cancels, then someone has to be kicked off the plane through no fault of their own. In the worst cases of this abusive practice, they attempt to give passengers credit toward another flight rather than cash. Delta does not offer refunds for basic economy flights. So if you need to cancel your flight with a seat in that category, they basically wind up selling the same seat twice if there is anyone waiting.
I point these facts out as evidence of how much pressure Delta and the other airlines must be feeling as their staffing problems and cancellations continue to draw scrutiny from both the media and the government. Offering ten thousand dollars in cash for a seat that probably cost less than a thousand bucks is an awful lot of “generosity.” They probably just didn’t want the eight passengers who were rescheduled to go running off and talking to the media about the terrible service they received.
It’s also worth noting that refunds or rescheduling don’t work for everyone. If you’re an infrequent flier and you’re booking a flight because of a particular event or appointment, having your flight canceled may cause you to miss the event entirely. In that case, offering you credit for a future flight does you no good. The point here is that they should be giving refunds (not credit) for every flight that is canceled and every overbooked seat.
Personally, I haven’t been on an airplane since the start of the pandemic in February of 2020. And I have no plans to start flying again now unless it’s an absolute emergency. Between the overcrowding and concerns as to whether the person in the next seat has monkeypox, I think I’ll just plan in advance and get where I need to go by car.
We were flying United home from Denver last month and when it came time to board, they offered $1K for anyone who would voluntarily bump or risk involuntary bump. We actually wanted to stay longer anyways. So when we didn’t see anyone going up to the desk, I decided to go up and I told the guy we’d be willing for $2K cash each and 2 Economy+ replacement tickets for 3-4 days from then. He made a phone call and we had check & new reservations in hand 10 minutes later. Original round trip flight cost was $910 for the 2 of us, so they paid us about $3.5k to fly Econ+ round trip on their airline.
Yes, but of the scores of passengers on board, there were surely at least eight who would suffer no undue burden by accepting the $10,000 and flying at a later time.
Regards,
I believe I heard one report say that if you had Apple Pay on your phone you’d get the 10K right away.
I was overseas once and passengers were offered 400 dollars to give up their seats. I took the money, figuring I would have to stay overnight. They then booked me on the next flight out.
You have my admiration!
10k? No brainer unless it was a life and death trip.
If this is true, the answer is to take the money.
The woke airline industry is crashing. A 10,000 pilot shortage and they will not change their stupid policies, just like Austin who thinks no one can figure out he is purging all conservatives patriots with his stupid ‘jab or leave’ dictate. Wokeness has cast common sense out the window. Wokeness is just another term for Covid Crazy. I think mind-altering crazy was infused in the injections.
I would up the ante from them. I’ll take the $10K AND a rental car. I could drive home from there as I did last Friday when my 11:00 am flight from Detroit was canceled. I kept my rental car and drove home. I was home for 6+ hours before my rescheduled flight even started to board.
And for the record...it was not “weather” related it was a job action by the pilots union negotiating with Southwest as a message to the other airlines about what they can expect going forward.
Was it Apple Pay or cash, or a choice of either? You could get the $$ immediately via Apple Pay, but would have to wait for the cash?
If you had to wait for cash I certainly wouldn’t trust them to get it to me.
Heck yeah! In fact, I would be willing to do it at least once per week. I see this as a revenue making opportunity to game the system! And, I’m in 😉!
What a moron, thinks he can catch "monkeypox" in an airline seat.
In 2018 or 2019 I was on a overbooked Southwest flight. I was given a travel voucher for what I paid for my ticket, I want to say around $300 cash in a meal voucher to take a flight about four hours later. Part of the reason I took it is because I knew I had booked it as a last minute flight so I paid more for the seat than if I booked it early in advance like I normally try to do. With the voucher, It covered all but like $20 My next round trip flight.
Per the CDC, so FWIW, fomites are an issue with monkeypox.
“...touching items (such as clothing or linens) that previously touched the infectious rash or body fluids...”
I stopped flying when I retired. No more TSA pat downs and screenings and dealing with the insane amount of idiots that do fly... They’ve become the Greyhound Bus crowd.
Never again and I was close to the million mile mark on Delta alone.
I flew on American once. It was on a newer narrow body and I found the seats to be fairly comfortable, as you said. However, the customer service on that flight was absolutely terrible, and this was before the pandemic. I had forgotten to grab a bottle of water at the airport, press the flight attendant button and asked if I could have another cup of water. The flight attendant seemed very upset about it and came back with a cup about a quarter full. I politely asked if I could have a full cup, and they came back with one about half full.
They were like that to a few other passengers who asked for routine things. Also, forever reason, even though it was a late afternoon/early evening flight, landing around 830 at night, they left the cabin lights on full brightness for at least half of the flight making it nearly impossible to try to take a nap.
I sent them an email via the website and received a whopping five dollar travel voucher for future travel on the airline.
Exactly. The only reason I would refuse that, as you said if it was a life or death situation either for yourself or someone you were visiting in the hospital, etc.
Worst case scenario, you could possibly miss a day of work, but unless you to make more than 10 K in that day at work, just take the money from the airline and call out Saying flight delays. Unless the company paid for the ticket, they’re not gonna know you took a 10 K check.
I haven’t flown now in a very long time. I’m not absolutist about not flying but since my last flight which was pre 9/11 all I have heard about the flying experience is worse and worse. At this point in the aftermath of covid flying is almost the last thing I want to do. Sure I would take the 10K if it was offered but I doubt I would be in the position to accept it in the first place.
Exactly. They were, probably 150+ people on that plane, or more, no idea what aircraft is used, Everyone who took the offer did so willingly. Now, if they bump you, and you have no choice in the matter because they couldn’t find a willing participant to give up a seat, Then, you probably should have the option of a refund if they can’t rebook you on a flight within a reasonable amount of time, say no more than 2 to 4 hour delay.
Realistically, that would likely only be an option for such a quick rebooking, if it happened at one of the major hubs of the airline.
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