Delta Air Lines plans to eliminate cheap ‘buddy pass’ tickets for employees’ friends and families within the next two years as part of major changes to the travel perks the Atlanta-based carrier offers staffers.
For readers who are not in the know, a buddy pass is a type of standby ticket that airline employees can offer to friends and family members at a significantly lower price than the full-fare ticket.
A buddy pass is not a confirmed ticket, and ‘buddy pass riders’ will only get a seat on the plane once full-fare passengers, employees, and their nominated companions have been accommodated.
Buddy pass rules differ from airline to airline but at present, Delta currently offer employees eight buddy passes per year that they can gift to friends and family members who aren’t a nominated ‘companion’.
From next year, however, Delta plans to slash the number of buddy passes it makes available to employees to just four and in 2026 the buddy pass program will be completely eliminated.
Apart from getting paid, Delta employees have consistently told the airline that deeply discounted flights are the most valued benefit the carrier offers staff, and the airline says it has decided to ‘sunset’ the buddy pass program based on employee feedback.
To sweeten the elimination of buddy passes, however, Delta is introducing a number of other benefits which should give employees and their companions more chance of getting on busy flights when on a standby ticket.
For example, Delta will soon increase the number of standy tickets that employees can buy with a higher boarding priority code than other non-revenue ticket holders. The so-called S2 boarding priority can now be used eight times per year – up from the current allotment of six times per year.
The airline will also allow employees to nominate two companions who aren’t traveling with the staff member at a slightly lower boarding priority level – until now Delta employees could only have one companion in addition to their direct family members.
Delta also says it plans to expand its ‘Fly Confirmed for Less’ program, which allows staffers to buy confirmed tickets at a slightly reduced price – typically around 15% cheaper than what the airline sells the same ticket to regular customers.
Although a valuable perk, Buddy passes aren’t without their issues, and in the past, staffers have landed themselves in hot water because of the inappropriate behavior of the passengers to whom they’ve offered their passes.
In many cases, employees are held accountable for the behavior of their pass riders, even if they don’t know them that well. Airline staffers are encouraged only to offer passes to people they know and trust and to educate them about the kind of behavior that is expected of them.
In the past, airline employees have also faced disciplinary action after they were caught selling their buddy passes for a profit.
In August, Delta also gave tens of thousands of staff members two free tickets to anywhere in the airline’s global network as a way to thank them for their ‘heroic efforts’ during the operational meltdown the airline suffered in the wake of Crowdstrike IT outage.
The meltdown cost Delta at least $500 million after the airline was forced to cancel more than 5,000 flights and delay many more after it lost track of where its pilots and flight attendants were in its network.
Delta continues to blame Crowdstrike for its operational woes despite the fact that other airlines quickly recovered from the outage. The airline continues to threaten legal action against the global IT security company unless it agrees to foot Delta’s losses.
