Delta Air Lines downgraded nearly a dozen passengers from Delta One to coach on a recent New York-JFK to Los Angeles (LAX) flight. Why and how did this happen — and what was the ultimate end-up?
Plus, Southwest Airlines is giving its pilots bonuses — days after the carrier’s union called for a strike.Those are some the day’s travel headlines I thought you, too, may find interesting.
Downgraded from Delta One to Coach
If you want first class, you should buy first class, right?
That’s what fellow Boarding Area blogger Takeoff to Travel did. He purchased a Delta One seat for a flight from JFK to LAX.
Except Delta downgraded him to coach.
Delta refunded him the difference between his Delta One ticket and a Main Cabin fare. They also offered him SkyMiles or an eCredit. What I found especially interesting is this: “It’s in line with what people on Reddit have shared with similar experiences to mine. Looks like Delta downgrades people quite often…yikes.”
Here’s $4,500. Let’s Maybe Forget That Little Strike Authorization Vote?
Last week, Southwest’s pilots union called for a strike authorization vote to take place in May.
A few days later, Southwest apparently dished out $45 million to the union — a seemingly goodwill gesture for all the inconvenience of that pesky meltdown the airline suffered late last year.
I’m not saying Southwest is trying to encourage its pilots not to strike. (I don’t think $4,500 would make a darn bit of difference, especially in a negotiation that’s been going on for three years.) And as CNN reported, “The airline said it will also compensate other employee groups who worked through the period, although it did not immediately identify which employees or how much they’ll receive.”
But $45 million is a heck of a goodwill gesture — in addition to other compensation the pilots reportedly already received.
Star Wars Hotel is Cutting Prices
SFGATE’s Katie Dowd says Disney’s Star Wars hotel is chopping its rates after opening last year. I guess $5,000 a stay is a little rich for some people’s tastes.
“The Starcruiser is a luxury cruise ship in space, which means guest rooms are tiny and there are no windows to the outside world,” Ms. Dowd writes. “Some referred to the hotel as a ‘windowless bunker.’”
And people don’t want to pay five large for such accommodations?! Imagine that. (Given this is a “cruise ship in space,” I wonder if I could review it for Frequent Floaters?)
Elsewhere
Something tells me this is more than a rumor. MGM-Hyatt Status Match Could End Later this Year.
It’s going to get ugly at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) on Wednesday.
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I’d be furious if I paid for a delta one seat and was downgraded to main for the 6 hour flight. At a minimum the entire ticket price should be refunded. I wonder if an alternate flight was offered? Were fliers offered compensation as in an oversold flight? That’s a lot of seats to oversell. Who flew in the rescinded seats? A lot of questions to be answered.
Hey, if you’re that furious maybe next time charter a private jet. Obviously Delta hates doing that to their customers but sometimes it can’t be avoided. They can cancel your flight or downgrade you because of a lack of Delta One seats on a different aircraft. What they can’t do is completely reconfigure an aircraft on short notice. Blame the mechanic who grounded that aircraft thinking of your safety. They got you there in one piece and compensated you. First world problems.
This happened to me in October 2019 when Delta moved me from 1st class to Priority because “another passenger needed the first class seat” and she “paid for her ticket”. (my ticket involved some payment and miles) I initially refused to give up my seat, but the gate agent became threatening (to remove me from the flight) and faced with being left in a snow storm in Denver, I ultimately accepted the demotion. Delta was not sympathetic to my situation in discussions after the flight and would not compensate in any way, or even apologize.
Same happened to us on a flight from Atlanta to LAX, 5 people downgraded, including elderly grandparents. Very unpleasant, and very limited compensation. Never Delta again.
Why the downgrade? Equipment change?
@Tom – In this case – yes.
Same here this past Summer. ATL – ANC with 13 (count them) Delta One customers downgraded to Comfort or Main Cabin 40 minutes before flight. One effected was my son in law from Row 3 to Row 33! No comment or help from anyone at gate, SkyClub or a word from Pilots entire non-stop trip. Took 6 months but Delta did refund fare difference and added the typical soft benefits.
This happens way more often than one thinks. I believe that this subject should be brought to the attention of DOT/FAA. Hey, Pete I know you will be right on it and get some answers for the general flying public!
Used to be a Delta fan. Not flying Delta at all cost. Their service and planes are dump. I have a big problem flying over 3 hours coach because of my back and rather pay premium. There’s no excuse to downgrade passengers with a legit ticket.
So fly a budget carrier. They are far more likely to take an aircraft with safety issues. I bet your mind will change, albeit too late, when you are about to lawn dart, screaming. But up till that point at least your back won’t bother you. Safety first!!!!!!!
It’s been a while since I read about a mechanical or safety issue affecting a budget carrier inflight.
You’re just a Delta troll.
I don’t normally defend big business, but if there’s an equipment downgrade , what would you have them do? Would you rather the flight cancel? It’s inconvenient, no doubt, but the days of luxury in airplane’s are gone, it’s just a giant bus in the sky. Point A to point B is all it is. If you want an “experience” when you fly, you need to choose a foreign carrier that is government subsidized.
Well a downgrade could be a good excuse to use since we don’t really know. Big business tends to like nice sounding excuses. And why not just say that all the time like southwest blaming everything on weather instead of their awful outsourced software. Second, if they fail to provide the service they need to vastly compensate rather than try to compensate just enough from their perspective. I wouldn’t want to buy a small pair of pants online only to receive a large with a free belt to compensate plus 10% off coupon on my next purchase with them.
They should have asked for volunteers at the gate just like they would have done had the flight been oversold. And anyone downgraded should have been in the Premium Economy section.
Very tacky of Delta to demote passengers!Offer them D1 on next flight
That’s all fine and good but the compensation had better be way better than roughly even exchange. First, how are they determining the economy fair for the price difference? Imo, they should refund the delta one seat 100% and then some. Delta can’t cry unfair because if it was me I would switch to another airline’s business class rather than fly economy but last minute flights are expensive and the only one causing this issue is delta. I shouldn’t lose out because delta can’t get their operations procedures correctly. Don’t give me that oh ummm we downgraded the equipment. Nyc to lax is a major premium route and this isn’t crappy delta first class it’s delta one. They breached the contract they shouldn’t try to offer as little as they can get away with.
So little on that story about Delta. It was just a guy saying I was downgraded.sounds like a change of equipment. Rather than cancel the flight they were able to find another one so people could get where they needed to go.im sure there are some people who don’t mind the risk of.flying on a broken plane as long as they are in first class. I’m not one of them. Safety first.
There certainly are 2 sides to this story. The solution should be to treat this the same way as an oversold flight. Have Delta offer Vouchers and keep raising the $ amount of the vouchers until enough people have accepted. However, this must be done prior to boarding, just as in the oversold scenario.
It makes me laugh when people seem to think airlines have extra aircraft just sitting around to use as spares. They don’t. As one person commented if there was a change of equipment it was because a mechanic grounded that aircraft. Yes it kind of blows but they got you there and you were minimally inconvenienced. First world problems. Would you rather fly on an aircraft with a known safety problem? I think not. Aircraft are complex mechanical beasts. Delta has the absolute best maintenance in the industry. Sometimes, no matter how good your team is, the airplane says, “not today!”
Your a bot
Bot to me, he seems like a real person. (See what I did there?)
No matter what is said trying to make Delta look good is furthest from the truth, they are a company doesn’t care about their passengers or employees only themselves. I guess it’s called business and the all mighty dollar.
Delta runs an airline and contrary to popular belief things happen. Airplanes are MACHINES and sometimes they breakdown. They fulfilled their commitment to get you to your destination.Be adult and realize things happen at last minute and beyond their control. If that is the WORST thing that happens in your life, you’re lucky. GEEZ!!
If you pay for a Rolls Royce and are given a Mini and a refund of the difference, you have good reason to be upset. I don’t usually have the resources to pay for a Delta One ticket (unless they have extreme sales which occasionally happens). There are also good business reasons for flying Delta One over coach if you have to be at your best the moment you arrive. Nobody said it was the worst thing in his life. It’s good when people call out bad decisions like the one that was made here, so that Delta can figure out how respond differently next time, in a way that would make everyone happy.
Why do we have to come to the comments to get the whole story on the Delta downgrades.? The 5 w’s are still the basics of reporting.
@Bill – You don’t. This is a news roundup and link is clearly in post well before comments section.
How did they select the passengers? As a Diamond elite, I would have been really angry.
Things happen. Understood. Did they offer the flier another flight that would accommodate Delta One seating? Or offer to transfer to another carrier that they have arrangements with. If not they should have and offered a reduction in fare. Problems will always happen.Its how they deal with them that counts. Simply reducing the fare after a ticket has been purchased should be a last, not first or only option.
I suggest you read the article. They did refund the difference. But how did they calculate the difference? If it was the difference between what they paid and a full coach fare, this might not be enough since, most likely, they would have bought a discounted coach ticket if they had known they were traveling in coach.
Chris, your article contributes absolutely nothing. There could have been a new plane with different seat configuration, a generous apology towards future flights or else. Unfortunately your level of investigative journalism does not go beyond GenZ style click-bait titles. ….what a joke.
Oh, no. There go my Pulitzer dreams.
as long as you don’t get your hopes up. 😉
If I could, I would vote for you!
@Marc – Question for you! Did you find out about this story because Chris covered it in a news update or did you first find the post on “Takeoff to Travel” and then come back here to add your comment?
This happens all the time! And what coverage are you talking about? I don’t see coverage!
@marc – I will take your “non answer” as the answer to my question that is you first learned about this story in the news round-up here on the blog. Thanks for reading!
I flew to Europe 11 times last year and experienced it myself. My response to Delta was “no worries and thank you for the extra miles”. The “article” should cover the facts instead of instigating grounds for speculation and dismissal. Unlike you I’m not ok with half baked stories that offer no substance. Cheers!
Congratulations on your extra miles. If you’re so upset with the post, I don’t know why you keep wasting your time and energy with it and us.
If there was a mechanical issue I am OK with it. However if DL swapped planes because this the first flight had a light load then we have a problem.
I have had this happen to me 4 different times on long flights on Alaska. No compensation but the flight attendant did give me a snack box. I didn’t pay for first but had a confirmed elite upgrade. It sucked but it is what it is. One flight I went from row one to the last seat on the plane by the lav.
Although the end result is the same, that you are not in first class, it is different when you are paying for the ticket. But it’s no different, in my opinion, from paying for any seat and not being able to fly (i.e. involuntarily bumping). As I and others have said a couple of times, this could all have been avoided by asking for volunteers – I realize they may come up with a reason why they didn’t ask for volunteers.
I’ve been a Loyal Delta customer my entire 45 yrs of flying…..and the stories above are really making me Angry!! Why Pay Extra for legroom and other amenities if Delta is gonna screw you over?!?!? About 8 years ago I was going back home to COS from Atlanta….near my parents home. My flight was over booked, I was in the row just behind 1st class…(back then)….while waiting the Flight Attendants starting offering cash Money and Upgrades to first class if anybody was willing to take the next flight. They needed 6 people to take next flight ..I got 400$ And first class seat by hanging out in Atlanta airport for 4 hours! Had a few cocktails and called hubby I was getting later flight. Guess Those days are long gone…..
Nice score, ColoKat!
Same thing happened to me an my wife on my honeymoon with American airlines. Purchased first class seats on a plane with lay flat seating. Worked extremely hard to pay for that upgrade to surprise my wife. It would have been our first time on first class. when we got to dfw, we got a notification on my phone that we got downgraded. And we’re told at the gate there was nothing they could do. I spent approximately 10-12 hours over the course of the week trying to get AA to make it right and they refunded us $240 based on their internal calculations. $240 was what the valued the difference between first class and economy. Complete joke of a response. I tried every way to report them with no success. The airline industry runs unregulated and without consequences. I’ll never fly American again.
That sucks! I’m sorry!
Not sure if I like the tone of you people.
Which tone, there are several.