Delta Air Lines reportedly offered $10,000 to passengers to be bumped from flight

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Several Delta Air Lines passengers went to Twitter after Delta reportedly offered $10,000 to get off an oversold flight from Grand Rapids to Minneapolis. The flight was scheduled to depart from Gerald R.

Ford Airport on Monday morning at 6:45 a. m. , but not all the passengers who boarded ended up landing in Minneapolis later that morning.

That’s because right before departure, a flight attendant came over the intercom and said that the flight had been oversold and that they would be offering compensation for passengers to disembark and schedule a new flight. But the compensation was so large that most people didn’t believe it to be true at first. The flight attendant said they would be offering $5,000 to any passengers who would be willing to take a later flight.

Todd McCrumb and his wife live in Boise, Idaho, and were on that flight, returning home after visiting family in West Michigan for a high school graduation. McCrumb says that he was in shock at the initial amount offered and thought that this wasn’t a real offer. But then, the flight attendant came back on the intercom and announced that they still need passengers to get off the flight to make room.

The flight attendant said they are now offering $10,000 to schedule a later flight. McCrumb says that amount sounded even more ridiculous and he was asking other passengers if they thought it was a joke or real. The flight attendant said they would offer the money via a VISA gift card or even provide the money instantly via Apple Pay.

Ultimately, McCrumb did not accept their offer and decided to stay on the flight, but once he got home, he went on Twitter to share his story. He says that he has received a lot of flak from people online for not taking the money, but says that he and his wife were happy with their decision to take their originally scheduled flight back home. McCrumb wasn’t the only one who took to social media to tell the story of the $10,000 offer.

Jason Aten, a technology columnist, was also on that flight and shared a tweet about the $10,000 payout one minute after the flight was scheduled to take off for Minneapolis. Aten’s Twitter thread took off with comments of people asking about the payout and whether he took it. Aten said that he was flying with a total of six people and none of his group decided to take the payout.

“Spoiler alert: We did not take it for reasons I’m not going to get into because my wife is still not pleased about it. . .

Look, I get that there are a lot of variables that go into deciding how much money to offer in a situation like this. I would argue that $10,000 seems like a lot, and in all of the flying I do, I’ve never seen it before. Several people I spoke to who also travel a lot had never heard of it before,” Aten wrote in an article about his experience.

So, the question became, who ended up taking the money? McCrumb said that there ended up being several passengers who did take the payout, but he wasn’t sure on the exact amount. He says he was surprised that it took so long for enough passengers to take the $10,000. On Wednesday, Twitter user @radrn13 wrote that her son was on that flight and actually took the payout.

Delta did not confirm that they provided passengers $10,000 if they agreed to be bumped from the flight. But, Delta did confirm that their gate agents have the power to do “whatever necessary” to provide excellent customer service and get flights out on time. On Delta’s website , it lists the reasons why and possible compensation for “bumping” passengers from flights.

They mention offering compensation in the form of gift cards, but don’t provide amounts. ► Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now .

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