Tag Archives for denied boarding.
On Monday morning Delta Air Lines was handing out $3,000 to passengers to take a later flight from Chicago to Seattle. It was the 7:50 a.m. departure the morning after Easter. And one passenger shares what happened after they had already boarded.
A United Airlines passenger flying a regional jet from Chicago O’Hare to Fargo snagged $2,000 in travel credits to take a later flight on Thursday.
United Airlines was overbooked by 14 passengers on a flight to Las Vegas. They hadn’t even sold more tickets than seats.
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.”
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.
Wednesday’s American Airlines flight 2484 from Las Vegas to Philadelphia had about two dozen more passengers than they could fly. The airline started offering vouchers to people that would give up their seat, but they weren’t getting enough volunteers. So first class passengers reportedly took matters into their own hands, started a collection, and topped off American’s offer so that passengers would get off of the flight and they could leave.
A family of three was traveling Delta from Oakland to Salt Lake City on an overbooked flight. The gate agent offered them $8,000 apiece – $24,000 in total – to take another flight. They felt like they’d won the lottery. But then Delta reneged on the offer. The family didn’t get the vouchers, and they didn’t get to take the flight.
On Sunday a family traveling from Philadelphia to Dallas – Fort Worth on American Airlines flight 410 had their seats given away to standby passengers as they stood at the gate.
The Nelson family, including their 8 month old child, had spent the past several days with Liz Nelson’s father as he passed away, and then at his funeral. American Airlines let them know the day before their flight that their 1 p.m. departure was delayed 16 minutes to 1:16 p.m. and that was their undoing.
United Airlines set the world on first when David Dao was dragged off of a United Express plane and bloodied three years ago. United’s CEO Oscar Munoz apologized… for having to re-accommodate him.
The worldwide outcry was so great that airlines had to revisit their policies for involuntary denied boardings. Now, as United does everything possible to reduce costs, it is scaling back efforts to control the sort of denied boardings that led to David Dao’s being dragged off a plane.
Like Delta, American Airlines is capping ticket sales to make sure there’s enough room on their flights for social distancing. This will run through the end of May. And they’ve done an about face on prior policy and will even compensate volunteers to travel later in order to avoid filling up planes.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
