Delta Air Lines Had A Good Thing Going, Then They Got Greedy

by Gary Leff

Sep 23 2023

For years they’ve been taking away from the program, sometimes a little at a time and sometimes a lot. And they’ve been requiring more and more from customers to get less and less. Like the proverbial boiling lobster, SkyMiles elite members went along for the most part every step of the way. And that was very good to Delta, generating around $7 billion from American Express at around a 40% margin and accounting for the vast majority of the airline’s profit.

Delta wasn’t satisfied with that, and they got greedy.

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Husband Asks Passenger To Switch Seats So His Wife Could Juggle 3 Kids By Herself

by Gary Leff

Sep 23 2023

Asking passengers to switch seats with parents so they can sit with their children is fraught. No one wants to sit next to your child! If they’re a teenager surely they’re fine sitting alone! And please don’t ask me to take a middle seat in standard coach in exchange for my extra legroom aisle seat!

Here’s a twist that I haven’t heard before, though: a father who asked a passenger to switch seats so that a mother, who was caring for two children (a toddler next to her and a lap infant) could sit with her third child also… so that her husband could sit alone in peace.

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13 Delta Passengers Receive $2,000 – $4,000 As Agent Begs Them To Take Later Flight

by Gary Leff

Sep 23 2023

Delta Air Lines paid 13 passengers on an overbooked Boston to Rome flight up to $4,000 each – plus covered their hotel rooms for the night – to get them to give up their seats.

The flight had already boarded when an agent came on board still looking for volunteers, and she ran an auction. You can hear her raising the price to $3,500 begging someone to “take one for the team” and “go shopping.”

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A Big Movement Is Coming To Re-Regulate The Airlines, And Make Air Travel Worse

by Gary Leff

Sep 22 2023

There’s a shot across the bow of aviation – an intellectual case is being made for airlines to revert to the status of public utilities. Sitaraman’s upcoming book can be seen as a starting gun for arguments over regulating the airline industry. The arguments for this used to be unserious, by folks like Robert Kuttner. That’s changing, and with a direct line to people in power.

People who care about not making air travel worse need to wake up to the threat, though there is also much we should be doing that would make air travel better.

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