WASHINGTON (AP) - Delta Air Lines hastily changed its baggage fees for troops Wednesday after a YouTube video showed soldiers complaining that they had to pay $200 apiece to check extra bags as they made their way home from Afghanistan.
The video was posted Tuesday and was viewed almost 200,000 times before it was removed the next day by the person who put it up. By Wednesday afternoon, a Facebook page called Boycott Delta for Soldiers had sprung up, and the airline was backpedaling and apologizing to the soldiers.
In the video, titled "Delta Airlines Welcomes Soldiers Home," two Army staff sergeants say their unit was told it would cost $200 apiece to check a fourth bag on a Tuesday morning flight from the Baltimore-Washington airport to Atlanta _ a total bill of more than $2,800.
The Defense Department typically reimburses such costs, which the soldiers may not have known before they made their displeasure known. The airline said late Wednesday that it would refund the fees if the government doesn't cover the bill. By then, the public relations damage to Delta was done.
In the video, one sergeant, Robert O'Hair, wearing a camouflage uniform and sitting inside the plane, says his fourth bag was a weapons case containing an M4 carbine rifle, a grenade launcher and a 9-millimeter pistol that he had used in Afghanistan.
"The tools I used to protect myself and Afghan citizens while I was deployed," O'Hair says.
With a bite to his voice, the other sergeant _ Fred Hilliker of Allendale, Mich. _ closes the video: "Good business model, Delta. Thank you. We're actually happy to be back to America. God bless America. Not happy, not happy at all. Appreciate it. Thank you."
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4 comments:
not really fair to slam the airline for having a fee for a 4th bag. seriously, a FOURTH bag! It's not an "anti-troop" policy. These bags weren't personal items, clothes, etc... as the soldier stated, they were rifles and grenade launchers! the business shouldn't be forced to bear the added expense of transporting troops home (in this case, it looks like that meant 14 passengers who were carrying 4 or more bags). It is 100% the job of our government who deployed them in the first place, to reasonably get them home... and not at Delta's expense. There are much better means of transporting military gear than a commercial airline. as a veteran myself, I know this for a fact.
what a tragic crime against humanity!!! grenade launchers should always fly free! (note the sarcasm)
I don't know why the unit weapons aren't returned by military flights to bases. The TSA's give me a hard time over fingernail clippers and a bottled water. These guys are bring assault weapons through airports??? What's up with that?? I was armed to the teeth but never flew with my weapons in the service unless it was a military aircraft.
As a corporation in America that soldiers put their lives on the line to keep safe Delta (and any other) should be ashamed! It's not like every flight is jam packed with soldiers coming home from war so suck it up and eat the exaggerated cost as gratitude for our military personnel.
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