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Delta Revises Bag Policy For Military Personnel

By: Meymo Lyons // June 8, 2011
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Soldiers returning from Afghanistan are complaining that they had to pay Delta Air Lines $2,800 out of pocket to check extra bags, including at least one case carrying a grenade launcher.

In a video posted on YouTube, the soldiers say their Army orders authorized them to bring up to four bags with them as they returned from Afghanistan to Fort Polk in Louisiana.

Delta's new bag policy, posted on the company's website, says military personnel on active duty may have four checked bags "at no additional cost." The policy says each bag has a maximum weight of 70 pounds and size of 80 linear inches.

They say when their 34-member unit checked in at Baltimore-Washington International Airport for Delta flight 1625 on Tuesday, the airline charged them $200 each if they had a fourth bag.

One staff sergeant says in the video that his fourth bag was a weapons case containing his M4 carbine rifle, a grenade launcher and a 9 millimeter pistol.

CLARIFICATION: The text of this story originally stated that the YouTube video had been taken down. While one user's upload of the video is no longer available, other copies are still on YouTube.

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