Melanie Morgan

Inbox news from Gold Star Mother and friend Debbie Lee: 

by Grant Martin (RSS feed) on Jun 7th 2011 at 9:00PM

A team of returning soldiers from Afghanistan was hit with an unpleasant surprise upon their arrival into the United States this morning. The squadron, bringing a full load of gear with them back from the Central Asia was sacked with the baggage fees in place at Delta Air Lines, which, despite the agreement that they have with the armed forces charged the soldiers extra baggage fees.

In sum, the group spent nearly $2800 in baggage fees for their gear, money that had to come straight out of their pockets.


Obviously a policy is in place between the airline and the armed services that permits soldiers returning from war to bring back all of their gear without cost. What's likely is that an uninformed agent at the connecting airport didn't know about the rule and charged the group. Either way, Delta should fix the error and refund the fees.

UPDATE: Delta's policy states that for military members, THREE checked bags are allowed in coach and FOUR checked bags are allowed in first, so the baggage fees may actually be correct. Whether Delta's policy is palatable or not is another question, but it appears that the agents were charging the servicemen properly.

I can't sit back and tolerate this! These are our brave warriors just returning from the battle field in Afghanistan fighting the terrorist and when they return home to America are told to fork over 200.00 of their own money to pay for the excess bag!!!! Are you kidding me.....I am reaching out to the military to locate these soldiers and with your help we will reimburse them. Please go to www.americasmightywarriors.org and click on the donate button and make the most generous donation you can so we can return the fees charged by Delta to our brave warriors.

Then let Delta know your outrage with the way they have treated our brave warriors!

Thank you in advance for your help! God bless our troops!

Debbie Lee