A travel website accused Delta Air Lines and others of jacking up ticket prices for single passengers compared to multiple passengers. It’s not sitting right with many online.
Thrifty Traveler did a side-by-side comparison of these charges on Delta’s website, showing a significant markup per ticket for the same flight if you only bought one ticket at a time. They claimed to discover the same phenomenon with United Airlines and American Airlines.
We were unable to replicate this alleged price hike, but Thrifty Traveler found some interesting fine print when trying to buy multiple tickets at once. Flyers are now accusing airlines of attempting to single out business travelers for higher profits.
$199 for one, $118 for two?
On May 28, Thrifty Traveler published an exposé accusing Delta Air Lines of charging an extra $81 per ticket for booking only one seat at a time as opposed to two. The screenshots show the lowest price for a nonstop one-way flight for one at $199, then $118 per ticket for the exact same flight for two. That’s a price hike of nearly 60 percent, and it appeared to apply regardless of the details.
“That group travel discount applies whether you’re searching logged in or not, searching for a cash fare or trying to redeem SkyMiles, and on most kinds of fare you can buy: whether it’s the stingy Delta ‘Main Basic’ ticket, a standard economy fare, or even Comfort Plus,” wrote reporter Kyle Potter.
An editor’s note later added to the piece says they found the same hike happening on United and American Airlines’ websites.
We tried to replicate these results with all three accused airlines, but the prices came up the same for one and two passengers. It’s unclear why we had different results, but flyers seem ready to accept these allegations as true.
This probably has a lot to do with all the other ways in which airlines have tried to squeeze more cash out of their customers in the past. Some might recall the 2010s accusation that ticket websites would jack up prices when you repeated a search. The outrage reached such a height that Consumer Reports aviation advisor William McGee led a study on the subject in 2016.
They found that on sites like Orbitz, the price did increase with repeated searches 59 percent of the time. However, because the airline industry is so secretive about pricing, they couldn’t determine why this occurred.
“This is a very opaque industry,” said McGee.
Accompaniment restrictions
Thrifty Traveler says they stumbled upon this phenomenon on Wednesday and don’t know when it might have started. However, they did notice another interesting change when trying to purchase two tickets at once.
In the fine print for the trip for two, Delta reportedly lists “accompaniment restrictions” that did not appear with the single ticket. It says that one of the two travelers “must be accompanied on all sectors in the same compartment by at least 1 adult.”
Potter does not believe this is likely to be a glitch, but “by design in its arcane fare rules, where airlines carve out requirements and exceptions in order to sell tickets at a certain price.” We were unable to find the same restriction notice when we tried to replicate the experiment on Delta’s website.
He goes on to theorize that Delta is attempting to overcharge solo travelers because they’re more likely to be flying for business purposes and charging the tickets to a company expense account. They, therefore, might not pay much attention to price differences.
“Tired of the single tax”
On the Reddit sub r/delta, customers were unhappy to learn about the alleged price hike. Single people were particularly incensed, feeling like the world constantly punishes them for not being coupled.
“I’M SO F*****G TIRED OF THE SINGLE TAX!” raged u/scenicroutekate.
One Redditor blamed capitalism as a whole, noting that the practice of charging more for a single customer isn’t limited to air travel.
“Capitalism really has ruined everything,” wrote u/thatshotshot. “These people and corporations will stop at nothing to nickel and dime you until no one can even afford their product and they go under.”
“And on a side note – f*** any and all places that charge more for a single person. Some of us are single and aren’t afraid to do things alone. Sick of constantly getting screwed because it’s one person so you get charged more.”
Another user agreed with Thrifty Traveler on their theory that Delta is targeting business travelers, claiming that the airline is willing to sacrifice the loyalty of single people for the profits reaped from expense accounts.
“Yeah they know the majority of solo travelers have an expense account they’re hitting,” said u/MozzerellaStix. “They’re willing to lose you as a customer to squeeze more out of those folks.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Delta Air Lines via contact form and United Airlines and American Airlines via email.
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