Anti-Union Delta Charges $2800 In Baggage Fees To Returning Afghanistan Troops

 Boy, I do not travel any airlines because they stab you in the back for taking along luggage. If ya want to change your flight well, that's another charge,  if you cancel your flight thats another chrge, and then sometimes you don't get back the cost of your ticket.  But, to charge our returning soldiers is a crime.  I loved one comment  

Gina Martini ·  Top Commenter · Bachelor of Science

Delta's Mission Statement:
"We support our troops as long as they do not hinder our ability to turn a profit. We will exploit them and rip-them off if it enhances our bottom line." 

Come fly the friendly skys!

10 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · June 8 at 12:35pm

BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT

By Pat Garofalo on Jun 8, 2011 at 11:22 am

Delta Airlines was caught this week charging troops returning from Afghanistan an extra $200 each to bring a fourth bag home, forcing one unit to pay more than $2,800 in baggage fees. Evidently, Delta’s policy is to allow troops only three free checked bags, while the soldiers said that their military orders allow them to carry up to four bags free of charge. In a video, Staff Sergeant Robert O’Hair explained what occurred:

We had four bags, and Delta Air Lines only allows three bags. Anything over three bags you have to pay for, even though there’s a contract between the United States government and Delta Air Lines when returning from Afghanistan on military orders, you’re authorized up to four bags. [...] We actually had to end up paying, out of pocket, our own money, to allow that fourth bag to be taken on the plane. [...] For me [the fourth bag] was a weapons case…the tools that I use to protect myself and Afghan citizens while I was deployed in the country.

Watch it:

 

The airline has apologized for “any inconvenience we may have caused,” but it has not indicated whether it will reimburse the troops for the fees. “We are currently looking further into the situation, and will be reaching out to each of them personally to address their concerns and work to correct any issues they have faced,” the company said in a blog post.

Delta is not only willing to charge troops to bring their equipment back from a war zone, but is notoriously anti-union. The National Mediation Board, which oversees union elections under the Railway Labor Act, has launched a series of investigations into whether Delta interfered with unsuccessful union drives at the company last year.

In the past, Delta has engaged in all sorts of shenanigans when it came to union campaigns, including putting the names of dead workers on their employee lists, to up the bar for the number of votes required to approve a union. As a Delta flight attendant wrote regarding a failed 2008 unionization drive, “The company has harassed, videotaped, and threatened arrest of union activists…Management also puts out confusing and deceptive materials claiming favorable pay, benefits, and conditions.”

Delta has also been accused of taking away seats from paying customers so that its employees can come to Washington, DC to lobby. So for Delta, it seems doing right by employees, customers, and even troops returning overseas is a bridge too far.

Delta apologizes to soldiers, increases bag limit by one. (Video disappears.)

By Laura Conaway

  -  

Wed Jun 8, 2011 3:26 PM EDT

Score one for the handheld camera and the will to use it. Delta Airlines has changed its policy about how baggage fees for military personnel after Army Staff Sergeants Fred Hilliker and Robert O’Hair posted a midflight video testimony on YouTube yesterday about how much they'd been charged.

"We regret that this experience caused these soldiers to feel anything but welcome on their return home," Delta posts today on its blog. The airline says it's working with the soldiers "individually to make this situation right for each of them." A refund? Frequent flier miles? The airline doesn't say.

Mr. Hilliker and Mr. O'Hair said their group of 34 solders got dinged for $2,800. "Good business model, Delta. Thank you. We're actually happy to be back to America. God bless America," Mr. Hilliker said into the camera. Long pause. "Not happy. Not happy at all." One of the extra bags contained a grenade launcher and a handgun, the kind of stuff you might have if you're a soldier, and not the kind of stuff you'd want to bring through a TSA screening.

After being embarrassed by the video, Delta has increased by one bag the number military personnel will be allowed to check without paying extra. If troops are flying first class or business, they'll now get five bags free instead of four. The proles in coach get four bags free instead of three.

The original video was taken down moments ago by the YouTube account, without explanation so far. Tricia McKinney found the one above, which was ripped from the original and posted just now by someone "in the interest of education."

As seen on the New York Times' At War blog.