We all know that with airlines these days it all comes down to your prison cell in the sky. This is because you have purchased the cheapest ticket possible. Delta may somewhat be in right to feature a pop-up letting customers know how bad their experience will be and that they should expect it.
You are purchasing no frills, no fuss but then you find yourself shelling out more money than you’d planned after encountering some persuasive sales tactics from Delta. A passenger rights group says Delta Air Lines is employing “shame” as a method to get travelers to buy ticket upgrades they might not have wanted initially. You know a thing called an up sell. McDonald’s does it with your fries each time you go through the drive-thru. To make more money companies want you to buy perks or extras not included in a base price.
These add-ons can be anything from a wider seat or more leg room, WiFi, to priority boarding and free ticket changes. A nonprofit group called Flyers Rights that advocates for passengers is calling Delta out on its tactics where it uses “shaming” for the upgrades.
On Delta’s website, choosing a basic economy fare will bring you to a final page to confirm your purchase and listed there are several consequences of buying the cheapest ticket. Which say you shall be last to board and may be the last to find overhead bin space. You don’t get a seat assignment ahead of time and that there are no refunds or ticket changes and no stand-by travel changes.
Delta claims that this is not meant to shame people but make them aware of what they are purchasing. Maybe this is good for the consumer to know ahead of time what to expect. Especially for someone who has not flown a few years and now how bad things are after all the mergers.
The seats can’t get any smaller so the only remaining way to up sell you to business class is to be honest about how much the cheapest seats suck. You can always fly other airlines to go against what Delta is doing here but 80% of domestic air travel now goes through just four carriers with Delta being one of those four.
One person commented on Facebook that “Air travel is the fucking worst, everyone agrees, but it is sometimes a necessity. And, when it is, most people just book the cheapest economy flight available to them, regardless of airline, and suck up the indignity of layovers, limited legroom, and cramped baggage space.” With someone replying that this is actually a backwards way of thinking.
It was the people that demanded the absolute lowest fares possible, and refused to pay anything more than the bare minimum. Airlines had to compete, and the public made it clear to them that the only determinant of our airline choice was ticket cost. Customers refused to pay for a ticket what it costs airlines to keep service high and the seating comfortable. Dirt cheap fares and heavy competition are what we have now and most have asked for it.
How do you get upgraded seats with more leg room? More perks such as priority access or free wifi? That answer is simple. Make sure you have good credit and apply for as many airline and frequent flyer or travel rewards credit cards as possible.
It’s really a shame that Virgin America is growing so slowly because they actually improve where all the other mega-corporate airlines leave off.
