Originally Posted by
mersk862
The cost/penalty is for you breaking the contract you entered with Delta when you bought a restrictive ticket. The CoCs are so slanted in the airline's favor, it's not even funny.
That being said, I do not know of a single major US carrier (aside from Southwest) that does not charge a change fee.
I was going to verbalize that in the cost/penalty is for you following the fare rules of the ticket you purchased.
You can buy a ticket from DL that doesn't have a change fee. Yet it will most probably be from a fare-bucket that you don't want to pay for.