There are days when you realize that no matter what you are part of a big and often heartless profit machine. As many of you in SEC country are probably aware former Auburn University TE Philip Lutzenkirchen was killed in a car accident very early Sunday morning. Though our time at Auburn did not overlap (I'm a bit older than Lutz) the younger brother of one of my closest friends did become roommates with Philip for several years. This younger brother is going to be married in August and the customary bachelor party in Las Vegas was scheduled for the July 4th weekend, Philip was scheduled to attend the bachelor party (had a ticket booked with Delta) and was supposed to be a groomsman in the wedding.

The party is scheduled to fly out of MSY to LAS on Thursday via LAX on Delta. The brother of my friend will now be traveling to ATL to attend the funeral services for Lutz on Wednesday and called Delta to try and change the first segment of his itinerary so that he could fly out of ATL instead of MSY. In order to do this Delta will charge my friend $320 to make up the fare difference. He was initially told he would be charged an additional $200 change fee though it was subsequently decided that if he would provide the name of the deceased, name of funeral home, and phone number of funeral director that they would change this.

I realize that there are bad people who would attempt to defraud Delta Air Lines by using the "my friend died" excuse. However, in this and all sincerely tragic circumstances it is sad to see the profit machine in work when there are flights with seats available.

Just an observation and this type of scenario is likely not unique to Delta. A tragic circumstance for these young men, not being made any easier by the airlines.

UA