Delta Air Lines, one of the biggest competitors of United Airlines will offer compensation up to $9,950 to travellers who agree to give up their seats.
In a staff memo, Delta revealed that the gate agents would now have greater flexibility to handle overbooked flights, including a bigger budget to offer passengers who give up their seats.
This decision at the wake of the United Airlines incident although sounds generous but tickets themselves, such as a last-minute fare from Atlanta to Johannesburg can reach those heights. However, the memo that Delta sent its workers reinforced the company’s priority for reaching an agreement with passengers voluntarily over missing a flight, rather than involuntarily denying boarding.
Following the memorandum, the gate agents on Delta will now be able to offer up to $2,000 (£1600) to passengers willing to change their flights than $800 (£640) earlier.
According to the facts released last week, Delta ‘bumped’ one in 100,000 passengers last year. United, in comparison, bumped over four times as many.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian told during a coincidental earnings call that no new legislation or regulations are needed to deal with overbooking because travellers could choose different airlines based on bumping. Delta denied boarding involuntarily among the least in the industry, just once in every 100,000 passengers last year, or 1,238 times.
