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Something to Divide the OMAAT readers
After making the incredibly tough decision to pass on ordering the prostate massager posted earlier, I was curious where the faithful fall…
[URL]https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/8874720/delta-airlines-passenger-furious-broken-leg/[/URL]
I don’t think they owe him a business class upgrade. I think a bulkhead or a row to himself is a perfectly reasonable request. It wasn’t clear to me if they were insisting the entire family of 10 fly together, which – unless it’s parents and 8 children – is not reasonable IMO (though I might change my mind if I had more details). I’ve been on a number of ski trips where someone hurt their leg and they managed to get bulkhead seats. I realize those are domestic trips so a lot shorter but I wouldn’t expect them to get upgraded, especially if business class was sold out with folks using either money or miles.
The airline has no responsibility on transporting the passenger back to the US due to injury. If the passengers purchased travel insurance (which the article doesn’t state but sounds like they didn’t), it wouldn’t have been an issue. The airline is a business, and has to follow their own revenue integrity procedures on changing tickets. As this would be flagged as a voluntary change of ticket, their would be change penalties and fare differentiations charged. Occasionally they will waive the change penalty, but the fare diff you’ll always be stuck with, and last minute from Asia will be expensive.
But with the Upgrades, generally that would have to be arranged beforehand with Delta special reservations, but I am not sure if they personally would be able to do a free upgrade on a Phuket to Shanghai partner flight.
This is a perfect example of why they should have purchased travel health insurance with emergency medical transportation.
I actually went through this with a business associate on a Delta flight from MXP to JFK several years ago. My colleague broke his leg falling down a flight of stairs in Milan, had surgery in an Italian hospital and was fitted with an open cast (designed for swelling). Delta gave us seats in the bulkhead and he was able to prop up his leg on a suitcase. It worked out fine and Delta went out of their way to make arrangements for him at JFK. A family member flew to New York to meet the flight and he was transported to a NYC hospital and fitted with a new cast and a few days later they drove home to Virginia. Fortunately he had great insurance and made a full recovery.
I completely agree. NOT Delta’s responsibility. $3K for a one way J class seems very reasonable.
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