Originally Posted by
jdrtravel
Delta should not have charged for these flights. Instead, they should have done a drawing or offered them to 360 members, a high school science class, or families through Make a Wish or something similar. This would have been even better PR, and it also would have prevented much of the blowback when things did not turn out as planned.
Yes, I agree. I think they should have done to fill up the flight with teachers, scientists, students, or people who donated x amount to a charity to qualify for an opportunity of this ride. Even if they decide to sell ticket, they could tell everyone upfront that they will donate 90% to 100% of the revenue of the flight ticket to charities, etc. But I think it is too late if they do that. If they do that now after the fact, their action would be perceived as ingenuine to cover up the DL1010 failure to provide totality experience.
Like you said, if the flight turns out to be bad, had they done it through the charity route, no one would get mad and everyone would just enjoy the experience and know they still doing good for this world to buy the ticket. In this scenario, the financial benefits through earned-media marketing would be certain and those benefits would far outweighs than financial profits they were making from just ticket sales and avoid the downside of being backslash if the flight failed to deliver the totality experience.
But they chose to make this event as profit making machine. They must think they would have executed two perfect totality solar eclipse flights when they made those decision.