Delta Has Issued $6 Billion in Refunds Since 2020
Photo: James D. Morgan (Getty Images)
We all know the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on just about every industry around the world, but we finally have a number to pair with pandemic-related airline refunds due to cancellations, delays, or shutdowns. According to Delta, that number is $6 billion, Reuters reports.
“Since the beginning of 2020 we’ve refunded over 11 million tickets totaling $6 billion, of which 20 percent has taken place in 2022,” Delta Airlines chief executive Ed Bastian wrote in a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
That’s a lot of flights — and also a lot of money. According to Delta, the company can serve as many as 100 to 200 million customers every year, which would make 11 million refunded flights a not-insubstantial amount of flights.
Bastian’s letter comes as a response to Buttigieg’s latest argument that the amount of travel disruption’s this year has been “unacceptable.” The U.S. Department of Transportation is also putting together a website that will clearly display every single airline cancellation and delay, along with that airline’s compensation policies, which is set to go live just before the massive travel season that is Labor Day.
Airline cancellations and delays have been a hot button topic recently. As many airlines eased their COVID-19 policies, staff illnesses became a double-whammy in an industry that saw many people move on to different lines of work for a variety of reasons. Widespread shortages and a surge in travel has made air travel a little bit of a misery at the moment.
