An American airline offered $10,000 to passengers on a domestic flight that had been oversold so they could change their ticket amid the wave of delays and cancellations that the country is experiencing, according to local media reports on Friday.
The media pick up the first-person account of Jason Aten, a tech journalist for Inc. magazine, who was with his family earlier this week waiting to board a flight from Minneapolis to Alaska when the airline, Delta Airlines, announced that he had sold more seats than he could.
Oversold flights are common in USAespecially those of low-cost airlines, which usually inform travelers before boarding and seek volunteers willing to change their flight for the next one at no cost or with some advantage, such as a free flight.
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However, according to Aten’s story, Delta Airlines was looking for eight volunteers to whom they offered $10,000 “in cash” individually in exchange for not occupying their seats, even saying over the loudspeaker: “If they have Apple Pay, they’ll even get the money right now.”
Aten said he had not accepted the offer for reasons he did not want to detail because his wife “is not happy.”
According to The New York Post, which confirmed with Delta that its employees have “authority to offer compensation” although not in that specific case, this airline announced in 2017 that they can offer up to $9,950 to volunteers in exchange for their tickets when overbooked.
A man who was supposed to be on that flight answered thehe story of Aten on Twitter and assured that it was true, adding that he did not accept the offer either because he could not leave his wife, who had to travel due to health problems.
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That passenger, called Todd McCrumb said in an interview on the KTVB channel issued Thursday that the airline initially offered $5,000 for those who vacated their seat, and later the figure rose to $10,000.
Delta recently announced that it was offering flight changes at no additional cost ahead of the July 4th long weekend, a U.S. national holiday, after a wave of cancellations and delays due to airline understaffing. and airports from the end of May.
