There are plenty of ways to measure whether an airline is good. On-time performance matters. Seats matter. Wi-Fi matters. Food matters. But one of the best tests comes when something goes wrong in a passenger’s life and an airline has an opportunity to simply enforce the rules…or show a little grace.

Delta Waived A $1,000 Fare Difference So A Passenger Could Say Goodbye To His Dying Mother

A Delta passenger shared a story on reddit today that I found deeply touching.

His mother was in hospice care and he had already booked a trip home over Labor Day weekend, expecting that it might be his opportunity to say goodbye.

Then his brother called and told him the hospice nurse believed the end was imminent…he needed to leave immediately.

Here is his story in full:

My mother was in very poor health. I’d booked a trip to go see her Labor Day weekend figuring it’d be to say goodbye.

Unfortunately, on Friday my brother called me to tell me that the hospice nurse said the end was near and that I should fly home ASAP.

I called customer service to rebook the flight to go out that very day. The upcharge for the rebooked flight was going to be over $1,000, which I don’t exactly have to spare. I explained the situation to Marissa, the person working with me. She took some information from me to verify the situation. After a five minute hold she came back and said the fee was waived.

This was an amazing thing to happen to me. I was able to go spend a couple of nights with mom before she passed without having to worry about the additional cost. It was completely unexpected since in the past I’d been totally underwhelmed by bereavement discounts.

So thanks Delta, thanks Marissa. And also, thanks to the waitress at the bar in SLC where I was laid over who could clearly see I was having a shitty time and comped one of my beers.

It doesn’t look like Delta has any method for me to submit a comment card for a specific incident, so I’m posting it here.

His mother died a couple of days later.

But because one Delta representative was willing and empowered to help, he got those final couple of nights with her.

That’s worth far more than $1,000, thought that’s easy to say when you don’t have the money to pay for the ticket exchange.

This Is What Separates A Good Airline From A Bad One

I realize there are problems with making exceptions.

Any system built around compassion can be abused. We see it with passengers who request wheelchairs simply to move more quickly through an airport. We see it with people who try to pass ordinary pets off as service animals. And if airlines routinely waived huge last-minute fare differences whenever someone called with a sad story, it would not take long for people to figure out how to game that too.

In this case, the passenger says the agent took information from him to verify the circumstances before waiving the fare difference. That strikes me as exactly the right balance.

Delta actually maintains formal bereavement and medical emergency fare programs. Those programs can provide flexibility in precisely these sorts of circumstances, though Delta’s published terms warn that fare differences may still apply.

Here, apparently, Delta went further, and I must applaud Delta here.

Rules Matter…So Does Knowing When To Bend Them

There is a tendency in large companies to hide behind policy.

Sometimes that is necessary. Consistency matters and employees cannot simply give away inventory whenever they feel like it.

But there are also moments when mechanically applying a rule produces an obviously bad result…it reminds me of Delta’s “Never Let Rules Get In The Way Common Sense” campaign from 2013.

A man whose mother is about to die is trying to move a flight he already purchased forward by a few days. The computer says that will cost another $1,000.

Technically, Delta could collect it.

Instead, someone said no: the employee (and perhaps her team) appeared to have had enough discretion to look at the circumstances, verify them, and then solve the problem.

I wish we saw more of that.

Can A Company Be “Good”?

An airline is a corporation, not a person. Delta exists to make money for its shareholders. I don’t expect corporations to be charitable institutions, and I don’t confuse a good customer service interaction with corporate virtue.

But to the extent that we can classify companies as “good” or “bad,” I think this is part of what separates them.

A good company creates systems in which employees can exercise judgment.

A good company also recognizes that maximizing revenue on every individual transaction is not necessarily the same thing as maximizing the value of the customer relationship.

And a good company understands that sometimes the right thing to do costs money.

Think about the loyalty this gesture probably created. If I were that passenger, I would remember Marissa and Delta every time I booked a flight for the rest of my life…Delta literally changed his life in a way that cost it very little but meant the world to this person.

Several people responding to the Reddit post shared remarkably similar stories, including another passenger who said Delta helped him get home in time to spend his father’s final 24 hours with him. Another commenter recalled a United agent rerouting him after learning during a connection that his father had suffered a heart attack, adding that he still remembers that employee 10 years later.

Of course they do. We remember kindness when it arrives at precisely the moment we need it most.

Delta presumably could have sold that seat for the higher last-minute fare and maybe it did give up $1,000 in incremental revenue.

But look at what it bought.

You cannot manufacture that sort of goodwill with an advertising campaign: it has to be earned.

And sometimes earning it means having the wisdom to leave a little money on the table.

CONCLUSION

A Delta representative waived a more than $1,000 last-minute fare difference so a passenger could fly home immediately and spend a couple of final nights with his dying mother.

Yes, exceptions can be abused. That’s why airlines need reasonable safeguards and verification.

But those safeguards should never become an excuse for eliminating human judgment altogether.

When someone is genuinely in need and an employee has the ability to help, this is exactly what I hope a good airline will do.

Well done, Delta.

And especially, well done, Marissa.

image: Delta