As a military officer and guy who a few months ago took the trip to Iraq (where I am now typing this reply) and will soon be taking an R&R trip home - I am indifferent. When I traveled over here, I no kidding had four or five times the amount of baggage than an average passenger. I flew delta to Baltimore before transitioning to the lowest bidder contract fare to get me into the AOR. Delta did not charge me for my baggage - maybe I was under the allowable quantity/weight, I don’t know - but I would have had no problem paying its required fee. My opinion Delata is a business and has the right to charge for baggage. But, when it does charge a fee for additional baggage above and beyone what it already allows military members traveling on orders to check - which once again is significantly more than an average passenger - the military members just need use his or her government travel card. No member will ever have to pay these fees out of pocket. Should the member decide to use his or her own credit card instead of the gov travel card he or she runs the risk of not having the expense refunded. The use of the government travel card is required for these types of expenses, furthermore, the gov travel card is required when traveling. Hopefully this adds another perspective on this situation. Regards
Chip - an AF Lt in Iraq
I’m also active duty Air Force and I concur with Chip. These fees did NOT come “out of their pocket”. They all have a Government Travel Card, this expense would be put on their travel voucher, and paid off by the government. If they paid with a personal card-that’s the risk that they are taking. My finance department has lectured me REPEATEDLY that these fees are to paid on a GTC and listed on my voucher.
I’ve had several flights, some in which I get charged for bags, some in which my bags have gone free. I’ve never had to pay “out of pocket”.
You are assuming every soldier, Marine, airman and sailor has a government card. Not so! My son had one from his first base because he was on the funeral detail team. When he got to his second base no one below the rank of E5 had a travel card. His NCO demanded to know why he had a government travel card and informed him that he had to surrender the card. Life is different in the peon ranks which makes this situation even worse. Those who can least afford to pay the fees aren’t given the means to have the government automatically pay the fees for them.