Dozens of passengers were booted off a plane so that the Delta Airlines flight could be used to fly the Florida Gators basketball team over the busy holiday weekend.
About 50 passengers were kicked off the Sunday flight as Delta said it needed the plane to bring the No. 15-ranked Gators to Storrs, CT for their game against the UConn Huskies, the Gainesville Sun reports.
However passengers weren't told that. The passengers in Gainesville, Florida, were told that the Sunday afternoon flight was cancelled. Yet they could still see their plane, Flight 5059, sitting on the tarmac.
According to The Gainesville Sun, the incident caused several passengers big problems. One missed a funeral. Another missed a moving truck that he was supposed to meet. Another had to drive to Georgia so she could get to a meeting on time. Several others were simply trying to return home after the Thanksgiving holiday.
"It just felt like the wrong decision made by somebody who didn't think it through," a passenger told the Sun.
The airline admitted to cancelling the flight so the basketball team could use it. The team was supposed to use another Delta plane for the charter but that aircraft was experiencing mechanical problems and could not take off.
The team was trying to get to Storrs by Sunday night so that they could face the Huskies on Monday night. However the team claims they were not responsible for the Delta flight being cancelled and that was the airline's decision alone.
According to a Delta spokesman, all of the passengers on the cancelled flight were put on later flights or were given a voucher for a free flight.
"Delta apologizes to those customers on Delta Connection flight 5059, operated by ExpressJet, who were impacted by the resulting cancellation of their flight," Delta said in a statement according to the Sun.
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