An Update and Correction

Yesterday I cited a Travel Pulse article quoting a Delta spokesperson explaining in rather harsh terms when it is that they are willing to issue compensation to passengers.

It was a startling quote which is why I highlighted it. I was pointed to the article by an industry e-mail list I participate in, and the author seemed credible. However, several readers doubted its veracity.

  • PR folks are usually much better than to say such things
  • The newspaper article cited for it didn’t actually include the quote.

I reached out to the author of the article that I cited to get clarification, and did reach him. He shared that the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinal piece is where he got the quote, and suggested that the quote was originally included in their article.

After I asked about the source of the quote, however, Travel Pulse updated their article with this correction.

UPDATE: A quote attributed to a Delta spokesman previously used in this article was incorrectly stated to have come from the Sun-Sentinel report. It has been removed and Travel Pulse regrets the error.

I have deleted the quote from my original post, and regret have passed it along. And I prefer not just to update the original post (which most people don’t return to) but to offer a standalone post as well in order to highlight the correction.

And thank you to the readers who expressed concern about the quote, since the result is it’s been removed from the original article I linked to.


About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. Sorry for lack of clarity, I don’t think it made sense to pretend it was never posted or hide what it was, I used the ‘delete’ tag through it AND posted an update in that post explaining the situation. I think I made things clear there.

  2. 60% likely the original quote in the Sun-Sentinal came from a friend of the author, speaking too candidly and off the cuff. Delta contacted the paper, the author didn’t want to get the friend in trouble by identifying them, so they removed the quote.

  3. > and the author seemed credible

    Seems more likely it was confirmation bias. Took me all of 30 seconds to find out that the cited article didn’t support your ‘reporting’. Even what was there showed your spin was taken out of context. That’s why I assign zero credibility to anything you write that contains the word “Delta”.

    Don’t you think you’d have done your due diligence if the quote had referred to American instead?

  4. @JEM the author, a reader of this blog, has been writing (about both sports and travel) for 28 years. I doubt he ‘made up’ the quote, but certainly had no reason to believe/expect he’d have done so. Wonder what your sweeping claim says about your own biases? 😉

  5. @David G – in addition to the quote of the comment attributed to Delta in the comments, the first comment on the story makes it sound like the quote was there originally as well, as the author of the Travel Pulse piece suggests.

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