Think Delta Airline Treats You Bad on Their Flights – What About If you Were a Double Amputee Marine?

Just When You Think Airline Travel Could Not Get Any Worse – Something Like This Comes Along

One has to wonder about U. S. airlines.  And what one has to wonder is whether or not they deliberately set out to make the flying experience as bad as possible.  After all, many of the airlines have a monopoly on many popular routes, and maybe they attract staff and management that just loves to make life miserable for everyone on their planes.  Maybe they do this not for any monetary gain, but just for the fun of it.

Case in point is the story of Marine Lance Corporal Christian Brown. 

Cpl. Christian Brown, in Afghanistan before he was injured (via Facebook)

Cpl. Brown lost both his legs in combat.  And in an almost equally bad experience he had to fly Delta Airlines from Atlanta to Washington.

Knighton, a former helicopter pilot with nearly 30 years of service, who turned out to be seated in the same back row as Brown, assumed that because he boarded last, he would be seated up front for comfort and ease of exit in case of emergency. Instead, she wrote in a complaint obtained by “She The People,” he was squeezed into a narrow aviation wheelchair that “bumped up against stationary aisle seats as he was wheeled through the aircraft. [He] was obviously humiliated by being paraded through the aircraft and was visibly upset. I touched Brown on his shoulders and asked if he was okay. Tears ran down his face, but he did not cry out loud.”

So, maybe the situation is that there were not better seats available.  No, that’s not the case.

Worse yet, according to retired Army Col. Nickey Knighton’s detailed “customer care” report to Delta, efforts by several fellow vets to shift Brown from coach to a first class seat offered by another flyer, were rebuffed by the crew. Flight attendants insisted no one could move through the cabin because the doors were being closed for takeoff, she wrote. 

And here is the report of another observer.

But while Knighton’s complaint reflects controlled rage, retired Army Lt. Col. Keith Gafford, also on the flight, held nothing back during a phone interview.

“I have been flying with Delta for a gazillion years and this crew treated Chris worse than you’d treat any thing, not even any body. I did 27 years in the military. 

Delta Airlines controls much of the air traffic that goes through Atlanta.  In fact, the saying is that if you are from the south and die and go to hell, to get there you have to switch planes on Delta in Atlanta.  Maybe Delta has just decided to make that trip shorter and to create hell on their planes.  Sure sounds like it.