Delta Airlines is a multi-billion dollar company.
The fly people all over the world.
It’s an incredibly complex and demanding business.
It would be hard to get a company of this size to change their business practices at all, let alone in a day.
Yesterday, two US soldier did just that.
And they did it with a home video camera and Youtube.
ABC News says members of U.S. Army Detachment 62 were returning home after a nearly year-long deployment in Afghanistan when they were assessed fees for excess baggage as they were departing Baltimore/Washington (BWI) en route to Atlanta.
Several members of the group had four bags to check, which exceeded Delta’s then-policy of allowing three free checked bags to military members.
“We found out we had too many bags,” Sgt. Robert O’Hair is quoted as saying by WXIA Channel 11 of Atlanta.
“Altogether the unit, made up of 34 soldiers, paid over $2,800 in baggage fees, all out of their own pockets,” ABC says.
The military members expressed their displeasure by creating a video on their BWI-to-Atlanta flight. They subsequently posted it on YouTube, where it has since been picked up by the media and has recorded more than 170,000 pageviews as of midday Wednesday.
However, the video appears to have been taken down sometime around 3 p.m. ET, instead showing a message saying: “This video has been removed by the user.”
Separately, a military spokeswoman told Atlanta CBS affiliate WGCL that any extra fees assessed by an airline would end up being reimbursed by the government if the soldiers were within their traveling orders.
Still, even with the possibility of reimbursement, the soldiers involved in Monday’s incident were unhappy to have to pay the fees out-of-pocket.
“A $200 bill for extra baggage by a government-contracted airline is the worst welcome home any soldier could receive,” Joe Davis, a spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars, says in a statement quoted by The New York Times.
Delta — whose military fee structure had been in line with other big airlines, according to The Baltimore Sun — apologized.
“We regret that this experience caused these soldiers to feel anything but welcome on their return home,” Delta says in a statement on its corporate Under the Wing blog. “We honor their service and are grateful for the sacrifices of our military service members and their families.”
Now THAT’s the power of video.
1 Comment
John D June 12, 2011
I loved this story…and then…the post spin from so many other sources makes me wonder if that Youtube clip wasn’t misleading.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy they shook up Delta and made them change their policy but what bothers me is that what they say in the video now may not be true. Other reports suggest the official policy WAS only three bags and that additional bags meant paying overweight charges. Charges which are regularly reimbursed to the military member after the trip when they file an expense report.
I don’t blame them for being upset at the $200 charge. I also think it’s outrageous for any service member returning from that part of the world to have to pull money out of their pocket to bring back their assigned gear.
What does bother me…is the misinformation.
Is this an example of how Youtube can be used to spread false information?
Is this an example of how someone, even if they believe they know the facts, can promote a one sided view and have it exagerated even more making people believe that a company, or person, who was doing what was correct, then gets blamed for something that they were not guilty of?
In some ways we need to remember that this was not a news story the soldiers put on Youtube. It was a one sided view of a situation where, in the end, they were wrong and damaged a company’s reputation by making an allegation which seems, now, to be untrue.
If others do this, companies and people may not be so forgiving and the person producing the video might face legal action.
Just me…thinking. 😉