A recent flight from Chicago O’Hare to Seattle turned into an unexpected financial opportunity for passengers when Delta Airlines offered up to $3,000 for volunteers to deplane. The flight, which departed at 7:50 AM on the morning after Easter Sunday, reached maximum capacity, prompting the airline to seek volunteers for compensation due to fuel rebalancing issues.
As passengers got settled in, a waiting gate agent came forward and made a surprise announcement. We are asking two volunteers to deplane due to fuel rebalancing problems. You will be given $3,000! As one passenger reported on Reddit, as he remembered, “I checked in with Zone 2, picked up my boarding seat in Row 10 and found my window seat. He later tweeted it was “a max-capacity travel sorta day.”
Earlier that same day, Delta had performed an equipment change on the very same plane. Throughout that process, the airline eventually increased the payouts to $1,700 for 22 passengers willing to voluntarily abandon their place on the flight. Because of continued operational problems, Delta ended up paying $43,400 in compensation in three different award offers.
These offers started at $500 and moved up rapidly, with the amount spiking up to $1,000 right before we boarded. Delta then went live with an increased compensation offer of $1,500 for one other traveler, according to another commenter. Shortly after, they raised their offer to $1,800, and a well-connected traveler jumped at the chance. This strategy was their attempt to address the excessive overbooking created by the forced equipment swap.
The passenger took the $3,000 deal at once. “I hardly even thought it through before my hand shot up,” they declared. Without a second thought. I wasn’t about to let someone else scoop it up first. This rapid response showed the excitement and readiness of everyone who had been waiting for their chance to get involved.
Because of the nature of the work, volunteers were paid in credits. They might like to spend this credit toward PayPal or gift cards at popular national chain retailers. The passenger who pocketed $2,950 after fees deducted from the initial offer explained, “I was offered $3k. I forget which card(s) I got, but one of them allows you to use it for PayPal. So I set them as my PayPal info and paid my wife, who then deposited it into our bank account.”
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