According to two passengers on the trip, Delta Air Lines ultimately offered a sizable sum of change to passengers willing to board an oversold flight as significant airline delays and cancellations continue to make news across the world.
This week, tech reporter for Inc. Magazine Jason Aten tweeted that he had taken a trip from Michigan to Minneapolis when Delta “just offered $10,000 for individuals to give up their seats.” He expounded on the event in a column for Inc. the next day.
He added, “The announcement overhead indicated that the flight was allegedly oversold and they were asking for eight volunteers. We were sitting on the plane waiting to leave the gate. “Delta was giving them $10,000 in cash in exchange for their tickets.”
He claimed a flight attendant informed customers, “If you have Apple Pay, you’ll even have the money right now.” It was even more alluring.
Todd McCrumb, a fellow traveller, endorsed Aten’s story in an interview with Fortune and on Twitter. According to McCrumb, an airline agent made an initial $5,000 offer to passengers while they were still at the gate but kept raising it as they left.
McCrumb, who was travelling with his wife, said on Twitter that they were unable to get off the plane because of her medical concerns. In his essay for Inc., Aten explained why he declined the offer: “My wife is still not happy about it, for reasons I’m not going to get into.
A request for comment from HuffPost was not immediately responded to by Delta Air Lines. But when Fortune contacted a spokesman, they got a hazy response.
The representative stated, “The option to pay remuneration encourages our personnel to take care of our clients and send our planes out on schedule.
Airlines intentionally overbook flights on a regular basis with the expectation that a certain number of passengers won’t arrive. Companies often provide a variety of incentives to get some consumers to rebook when there are more ticketed passengers than seats on the aircraft.
According to CNBC at the time, Delta increased the maximum amount agents could pay customers in 2017 from $1,350 to $9,950, a significant increase. That choice was made a few days after Chicago airport police and United Airlines faced considerable criticism for the way in which doctor David Dao was forcibly removed from an overbooked flight.
