Delta Air Lines flight 5637 from New York JFK to Columbus was overbooked on Saturday, and a gate agent found himself begging passengers to take $1,300 and travel at 9 a.m. the next day.
The airline started off offering $800. That’s more than you’ll find American or United offering most of the time. The agent worked his way up to $1,300 volunteer – and he was selling it. He needed three volunteers and pitched,
That’s a lotta money ledies and gentlemen. You understand me, you need to look me in the eye. Just let this $1,300 go by? Come on.
$1,300, you could do a lotta stuff with that. You could splurge! Do I have my $1,300 volunteers?
And he celebrates with joy, “YEAH! I got two!” But he still needed one more.
The auctioneering to find 3 volunteers took a little time. The flight departed 10 minutes late – but still arrived in Columbus, Ohio nearly half an hour early.
A few passengers were each $1,300 richer. And unlike most airlines that fund bumps with airline scrip, Delta actually provides $1,300.
On Christmas Eve day Delta was offering as much as $8,000 per passenger (before reneging when they cancelled the flight). Shortly after the David Dao dragging incident on United Delta authorized gate agents to go up to $9,950.
Around that time United gave one passenger a $10,000 travel credit for taking a later flight but they eliminated that generosity at the start of the pandemic. American Airlines once handed out $5,000 per passenger on a flight where they weren’t legally required to do compensation at all, because the overbooking resulted from a change in aircraft. Yet they handed out around $250,000 in compensation for that one flight. American ceased their generous denied boarding compensation policies, too, leaving only Delta regularly handing out that much cash when they overbook.
Delta still takes the position that when they make a mistake and sell too many tickets, it’s their responsibility to own the cost and make it worthwhile for passengers to take a later flight – instead of ultimately just falling back on legal minimum cash compensation if there aren’t enough volunteers at lower amounts.
Me and my wife each got $3000 from Delta several years ago on an over booked flight
On a recent United flight, they were offering $1300 for any passenger willing to take a later flight.
I just got $1000 and a first class ticket from delta this week. My new flight arrived at the exact same time as my original one. I definitely appreciated the generosity!
Got $5k from United for a broken biz class seat and resulting downgrade on an EWR-SFO in the post Dao days
There’s a huge difference between cash and a travel credit. Make sure never to confuse the two.
I just got $1k last week to wait 3 hours for a United flight from DEN to YRA (super small in Wyoming).
And this is why I try to ONLY fly Delta.
Unbelievable that no one would take that.
I can see why people weren’t jumping all over the $1,300 if it didn’t include a room to sleep in on what became a long layover. Still, Delta did the right thing and compensated those who could take up the deal.
Maybe they should sell one seat to one person, like any other sane industry does. Enough of this nonsense.
On a puddle-jumped a while back (between SBA and LAX), the flight attendant said the plane will not take off until someone leaves. Did not offer any cash (nor funny money), but was careful not to order anyone off the plane (which would have triggered compensation). I buried my nose in a book, waited until someone left — I did NOT have $20M+ immobilized…
Cash? Plus cover the room and a meal or two? Deal. Voucher? Not if I don’t plan on going anywhere on Delta for a while.
Cash? I’d be all over that most of the time and I’m surprised they had to go so high. I doubt most of the passengers were doing anything in Columbus that night worth $1,300.
I saw an article a while back that there are people making a living taking advantage of these cash giveaways. They book cheap flights they expect will be oversold and try to get as much money as they can. Delta even allows people to collect on one flight, get bumped to the next and collect again.
I like to fly and I love watching other people stress at airports. Even I would find this strategy too stressful. That is leaving too much up to chance.
This is exactly why Delta consistently has an involuntary denied boarding rate of ZERO point ZERO ZERO.
And, ladies and gentlemen, that was a cash offer.
August of 2019. I was flying American Airlines outta Phoenix,Az.on a Sunday night. They overbooked that flight and were asking for volunteers to catch the next one the next morning. I got a $1000.00 voucher good for one year to use. An overnight stay in a 4 star hotel worth $200.00 a night. Plus a $30.00 coupon towards food in any restaurant in the Sky Harbor Airport. It was a good deal for me.
I know most people won’t do it, but truly the $1300 should be reported as taxable income, so I would consider one third of it going toward taxes at my highest marginal rate. If I have to pay for a room near JFK, I would expect to lose at least $200 for the night. Alternately, I could punish myself by trying to sleep in the airport while staying safe. If the next day was a normal work day, I could take it as no shift, no pay or I could lose one of my vacation days or other personal days. In any case it would have a cash equivalent loss. As you can see, the amount that I would be ahead is less and less and also getting it creates other problems. Being retired, the numbers are somewhat better. One trip to Bangkok was delayed a day due to a maintenance issue. When we got there, we were not met by my wife’s relatives and had to get a hotel room for several days since they had moved and my wife did not have their new contact information and address. We finally tracked down a mutual friend who was able to track down where they had moved to.
I’d pay them not to have to go to Columbus!
This article cannot even be more inaccurate than what it already is. What a bunch of crap. Airlines are required to overbook, because passengers demand low fairs. And FYI, FAA sets compensation not the airlines. Person who wrote this should be fired.
Delta has really turned out to be the least-hateful airline in the business over the last few years. Good for them.
United = scumbags
What happens when you accept an offer (me recently) for $3,000.00 they took my boarding pass told me to sit quietly in the corner, then told me after 20 minutes, they didn’t need my seat??? In the interim I had cancelled a ferry ticket and a hotel reservation at my destination incurring a loss..
@Paul – you do not know what you are talking about. “FAA sets compensation not the airlines” Department of Transportation regulations set the minimum required compensation for involuntary denied boardings. Airlines set their own compensation for voluntary denied boarding (volunteers).
@jns – as it happens I have covered why denied boarding compensation isn’t taxable!
https://viewfromthewing.com/denied-boarding-compensation-taxable/
DELTA has always been the best!
@Gary Leff, thanks for the link as I didn’t know of this site back then. The arguments and the comments were interesting but no IRS United States Tax Court ruling was cited which would have set a precedent. If the airlines wanted to send a 1099, they could do so easily as they have your correct name and could require your correct address and Social Security number before giving cash compensation. Of course, without taxes on the surrendered seat payment, it becomes more lucrative but I would still find it less than mostly in my pocket if I was still working and the next day was a work day.
Just last year Lufthansa changed equipment on our flight from MUC to EWR. A350 went to A340. My extra legroom seat was lost so I – at 6’8″ – crammed into a regular seat. Upon complaining to the airline nice home, they refunded the entire cost of my round trip ticket – $1300!
Honestly all I wanted was the $40 I paid for the extra legroom seat…
United was offering $2000 voucher last month from Baltimore to Chicago on June 28, 10:15 AM flight. They initially offered $1200 and went up to $2000. The flight before the 10:15 flight was cancelled so they had to fly back their pilots and crew back to Chicago on the later flight. I didn’t take it because the line at the counter was super long and there was no guarantee that you could fly out the same day.
So far this year on my flights, I’ve seen Delta offer $2,000 plus hotel for ATL-LHR with the next available seats the next day, $2,000 for ATL-VPS over 4th of July weekend with no seats available for 36 hours out (it’s a six hour drive, so the sensible thing people were doing was taking the first of two free hotel nights and then renting a car to drive to Florida) and $1,000 for JAC-ATL.
The ATL-VPS situation seemed to be caused by an equipment swap of different 737 types due to thunderstorm IRROPS earlier in the day- something like ten oversold.
Alas, I couldn’t get my travel partner to buy into the bump so ended up passing.
Got offered 5k in the form of 2.5k Visa Gift cards and the rest in travel credits for Delta, for myself, wife and kid. 15,000 to take what ended up being a empty red eye and we got first class.
Oh man! I WISH I had been there for that offer. Getting bumped is the absolute best thing when you have time. Have earned a few free flights that way. Love it!!!
Last Monday Delta at SEA was offering $2000 to passengers to take a later flight to LAS. They had no problem finding volunteers.
I’d have to look at the government travel site, but I’m fairly sure there are federal regulations regarding bumped flights depending on the amount of time the delay is, like 4hrs I think is 3 or 4 times the cost of a 1 way ticket on your flight
@Chris – that’s likely because rather than deal with the hassle of an EU261 claim, they’d refund the ticket upfront. Under EU Law, what you experienced can be considered a voluntary downgrade with pretty high minimum compensation required. Probably easier for the agent to chalk it up as their refund exception of the month.
Back in the 90s I doing a job I. Columbus. I figure USAir flight from lga was always overbooked in sunday nights. I collected a few vouchers lmao. The next flight was at 7 am just in time to arrive at work at 9 am. I was flying bos to lga just to earn a voucher. By the way, 80% of vouchers are never used, reason why airlines love to give them away.
On a side note, it’s only fair to look at the other side of overbooking. There are a number of passengers that no show, or make a last minute change.
Overbooking is a response to that. If you look at the rarity of $10000 please take another flight pitches, it seems airlines get overbooking right more often than not.
If passengers could be relied upon to be there 100% of the time, my gut feeling is overbooking would go away.
Just a reminder that even when some US airlines didn’t overbook, they registered involuntary denied boardings which can happen as a result of operational issues – downgrading to a smaller aircraft or operationally-driven payload restrictions.
Delta’s ability to handle overbooking serves it regardless of the reason for the overbooking.
Also, I would bet that this overbooking was because of cancellations on Friday in the NYC area which involved high rates of cancellations for regional airlines.
NYC to Columbus is within the distance that can be driven in a day if someone was so inclined.
For these offers to volunteers – do they also typically include hotel and meal vouchers? If not, that’s a whole additional level of hassle and unnecessary costs that then need to be incurred.
No amount of money is enough if you get fired for not showing up to work the next day.
My husband and I flew into Minneapolis/St Paul from Reykjavik, Iceland yesterday (7/23). In Minneapolis, Delta was offering $500 each for us to take a 3 hour later to Phoenix. We accepted and will receive a total of $1000 ($500 x2). Woo-Hoo!
Do UA and AA just have dumber customers? Because who is going to take $500 in airline scrip to fly the next day? I sure wouldn’t.
After multiple delays from united, over booking on American and the Hub stops or multiple stop flights with Delta I started booking on Southwest and only had a delay (due to weather) one time. The prices are straight forward when you look them up, no additional bag or seat charges and most attendants have worked for them a long time. That says alot in this business. Happy workers brings and keeps happy passengers
Will they also cover Hotel accommodation and meals if you take the offer? Plus free upgrade to the next highest class of service?
If so, might try DL next time!
United-Not again. I flew once via LGA but my luggage ended up in JFK! It took them 3 days to deliver my bags
This past Sunday my flight from Detroit to Memphis was delayed about an hour. They started the offer at $800 (gift card and/or travel voucher) plus hotel of your choice, free transportation and $30 food voucher). I was one of the 3 volunteers they needed when the number got to $1000. Stayed at a Doubletree 15 minutes from the airport and got into Memphis about 13 hours later than I would originally had.
My family of 5 just received $2500 each from Delta in June for taking the next flight from JFK to St. Maarten this past June. They also gave us two free rooms. $12,500 wasn’t a bad way to spend our vacation.
At least they offer you guys $1,300 we were offer 0 not even snacks on our outbound flight from ATL to LGA on Thursday. The flight was delayed 3 times because the pilot delayed then after 5 hrs they cancelled the flight because they had no pilot. On our return they resold my kids seats and had to rebook me on another flight I had to leave LGA to go to JFK with 2 minors running around then to get to JFK and the flight got delayed twice. My kids and I was stuck for 7 hrs, kids fussing and tired and when I got to ATL after midnight then they emailed me to offer a hotel stay and snacks. What can I do with that when I live in Atlanta. It’s horrible not sure what’s up with Delta!
I would gladly volunteer as I have nothing better to do but would need my luggage. It’s a lot better than getting stranded in Dallas because (AA) they moved the gate and no compensation.
Why is this news? I used to be a Delta gate agent and I have worked hundreds and hundreds of oversold flights.
I’ve had to deny passengers boarding when I didn’t get volunteers and they left with a check they could immediately cash for usually near 3k.
If you volunteer, you get a gift card that you may forget about and never use. That is what they are banking on.
I’m retired from an airline you don’t get cash you get vouchers to use in future flights. Agents don’t set the amount. The amount goes up according to the flight frequency and destination.
I was flying DL2958 on 21 July from TPA-LGA, and ran across a similar offer. The gate agent started bidding at $800, and within 15 minutes the offer spiked to $1000…to take a flight 4 hours later. I was enroute to a family funeral that afternoon, and was dismayed at the terrible timing, being that it was the highest offer yet. I’d have jumped on it otherwise. The last three times I’ve flown Delta this has occurred, so I’ll take all of the SkyDollars I can get.