Delta Offers $30,000 to Passengers Involved in Toronto Flight Crash, ‘No Strings Attached’

Passengers involved in a serious crash taking place at the Toronto Pearson International Airport on Feb. 17 were very fortunate to escape with their lives, as FOX Business reported, with no fatalities resulting from the incident — although 21 suffered injuries, with three being critically injured.

In turn, Delta has come forth with an offer to the 80 passengers of Flight 4819, 76 passengers and four crew, putting forth a sum of $30,000 per person to those affected. According to CBS News, the Delta Care Team said that “this gesture has no strings attached and does not affect rights.”

“It’s horrifying when you look at the video,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CBS Mornings, per The Guardian. “You can imagine when I received the text minutes after it happened, hearing there was a regional jet upside down on an active runway.”

“The reality is safety is embedded into our system. Air travel in the United States is the safest form of travel,” he added.

The aircraft involved was a CRJ-900 jet and was operated by Endeavor Air, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines.

While Some Blame Trump Administration FAA Cuts, Delta CEO Rebuffs This Argument

FOX Business further outlined that some commentators critical of the Trump administration’s recent cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration had laid at least some of the blame concerning recent aircraft-related disasters at the president’s feet.

For his part, Bastian rejected this link of thinking.

“I’ve been in close communication with the Secretary of Transportation. I understand that the cuts at this time are something that are raising questions, but the reality is there’s over 50,000 people that work at the FAA. And the cuts, I understand, were 300 people, and they were in non-critical safety functions,” Bastian said.

“The Trump administration has committed to investing deeply in terms of improving the overall technologies that are used in the air traffic control systems and modernizing the skies. They’ve committed to hiring additional controllers and investigators, and safety investigators. So no, I’m not concerned with that at all,” he concluded.