Shame on Delta Airlines, May they Rot in Hell

[Ancient Dragon]

This article from SodaHead made me mad as hell. Delta airlines should be ashamed of itself for the outrageous act against returning service members.

[jingda]

This is absurd. Delta airlines should be brought to court and settle the matter. This is the most ridiculous thing i have heard, soldiers defending their country and when they return home, they should be given a hug by their families or girlfriends not charge money for their baggage. The soldiers should have shoot at the airlines stuff for their crappy attitude. Money face

[Agilemind]

That is a communication error on the part of the Military or Delta or both. Who ever was responsible for telling them they could check 4 bags free should be picking up the tab.

[VernonDozier]

That is a communication error on the part of the Military or Delta or both. Who ever was responsible for telling them they could check 4 bags free should be picking up the tab.

Yep, it could have been the bureaucracy on either side. I can't imagine the individual soldiers will end up footing the bill. The whole system needs to be worked out for stuff like this...

Another soldier explained what he had in his fourth bag: "It was a weapons case holding my grenade launcher and a 9 millimeter, the tools that I used to protect myself and the Afghan citizens while I was deployed in the country."

The article is a little bare on the specifics and it's unclear to me whether the weapons were in the bag or just the case, but if we have a bunch of guys travelling with guns on a civilian flight landing in a civilian airport and then their bags being handled by civilian baggage handlers, off-duty soldiers or not, that seems like a security problem. Seems like weapons and cases, etc., ought to be transported on military planes.

But these guys aren't going to have to pay. The public outrage will be too high. Either Delta, Uncle Same, or both will pick up the tab.

[WaltP]

I think it's criminal to charge for luggage at all.

[jingda]

Agreed with WaltP above. Maybe hell won't even accept them when they die.:D

[jon.kiparsky]

You know, here we've put these guys into a war zone for the last year, or two, or three, or who knows how long some of them have been there, getting shot at every day by some sorry sonuvabitch who might be selling them a kebab tomorrow, watching their buddies get shot all around them, for no apparently coherent political goal or purpose, just because someone said to go and do all that and that someone had absoutely no idea what to do next, just get some guys there so people will think we're doing something about the bad guys - and then they come back and there's not a job to be had and if they're lucky they won't be seeing enemy ambushes around every corner, and if they're not lucky, they're told to just man up and ignore it, and if they can't do that, well, there's no reason to talk about suicide rates of returning troops, is there, not that they're out of line or anything, and hey, we treat our veterans great, just ask the homeless ones I see every day here in Boston, or my girlfriend's dad, oh wait, you can't ask him, he died of cancer while she was in high school, had nothing to do with Agent Orange though, so you can't really say that anyone's coming back and really very worried about what's going to happen to them, you can't say we've got any kind of history of ignoring our returned veterans when they come back and they're all used up, you can't say they've got a right to be concerned about where they're going to be, what's left of the life that we took away from them to send them off into an imbecile war for an imbecile president, or whether there's going to be any sort of way for them to recover from what we've done to them, emotionally, physically, spiritually, psychologically - no, I guess you're right. The luggage is the single biggest thing we should be worrying about. Once we get that sorted, it's all cool, we can go back to arguing about just how thoroughly we should destroy the social welfare systems a lot of these guys are going to be relying on for the rest of their natural - or foreshortened - lives.

Yeah - shame on Delta. That's right.

[jingda]

Lol. After so much of reading, you have a conclusion. Shame on delta.:D

[diafol]

Christ jon, I almost passed out trying to read that. OK, I gonna hyperventilate and try again. :)

With the rest of you, servicemen of all nations deserve the support of their national businesses (and their governments obviously).

However (please don't shoot me here!), I caught this on http://www.newser.com/story/120467/delta-stings-returning-soldiers-for-baggage-fees.html

"Anything over three bags you have to pay for," one soldier says. "Even though there's a contract between the US Government and Delta Airlines."

A military spokeswoman says the troops will be reimbursed for the extra baggage fees.

Has this been blown out of proportion by what may be a misunderstanding? Were Delta told "We'll pay for 3 bags" by the government? Was that the agreement? I'll hold judgement until I know the facts. Couldn't find that info after searching.

[vegaseat]

There are people that blame the sun for their beach sunburn.

[jwenting]

The article is a little bare on the specifics and it's unclear to me whether the weapons were in the bag or just the case, but if we have a bunch of guys travelling with guns on a civilian flight landing in a civilian airport and then their bags being handled by civilian baggage handlers, off-duty soldiers or not, that seems like a security problem. Seems like weapons and cases, etc., ought to be transported on military planes.

These aircraft are usually chartered by the military to transport the troops (so they carry only troops and airline staff). Weapons are kept in the cabin, never handled by airline staff. Ammo is shipped by air freight either on chartered aircraft or military ones.
There's no security risk. In fact the soldiers are required to take care of their personal weapons, I don't think checking them into the hold is even allowed under their operational rules for the very reason of security: ensuring no unauthorised personel have access to them.

They typically land at a civilian facility, but not at the public terminal. Ramp arrival, and the troops are bussed off to their stations where the weapons are put in the armoury before they go home.