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Delta bag fees for troops spark backlash
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2010 file photo, passengers walk past a Delta Airlines 747 aircraft in McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Mich. Reacting to public outcry, Delta said Wednesday, June 8, 2011, it will allow members of the military to check four bags for free. The news came after two Army soldiers returning from Afghanistan complained in an online video that Delta charged their unit a total of $2,800 when some of them checked a fourth bag.(AP Photo/Paul Sancya, file)
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Delta Air Lines hastily changed its baggage fees for troops Wednesday after a YouTube video showed soldiers complaining that they had to pay $200 apiece to check extra bags as they made their way home from Afghanistan.
The video was posted Tuesday and was viewed almost 200,000 times before it was removed by the person who put it up. By Wednesday afternoon, a Facebook page called Boycott Delta for Soldiers had sprung up, and the airline was backpedaling and apologizing to the soldiers.
In the video, titled “Delta Airlines Welcomes Soldiers Home,” two Army staff sergeants say their unit was told it would cost $200 apiece to check a fourth bag on a Tuesday morning flight from the Baltimore- Washington airport to Atlanta — a total bill of more than $2,800.
The Defense Department typically reimburses such costs, which the soldiers may not have known. The soldiers almost certainly will be reimbursed by the Defense Department. But they made their displeasure known, and the public- relations damage to Delta was done.
In the video, one sergeant, Robert O’Hair, wearing a camouflage uniform and sitting inside the plane, says his fourth bag was a weapons case containing an M4 carbine rifle, a grenade launcher and a 9-millimeter pistol that he had used in Afghanistan.
“The tools I used to protect myself and Afghan citizens while I was deployed,” O’Hair says.
With a bite to his voice, the other sergeant — Fred Hilliker of Allendale, Mich. — closes the video: “Good business model, Delta. Thank you. We’re actually happy to be back to America. God bless America. Not happy, not happy at all. Appreciate it. Thank you.”
The soldiers say in the video that they already had endured an 18-hour layover and had Army authorization to carry four bags.
Initially, Delta apologized to the soldiers but didn’t change its policy. It posted a blog item attributed to an anonymous customer- service representative explaining that Delta allows troops traveling in economy class up to three bags free but charges for the fourth.