Delta airlines excess baggage policy for US soldiers. Did they do a good job managing the crisis?

Delta Airlines landed in some hot soup early June 2011 when they charged $2800 to US soldiers returning from a mission, for excess bags. According to policy, three bags are allowed to be checked in free for soldiers traveling Economy Class, and the fourth bag for each of the 34 soldiers had to be checked-in.

While the soldiers would have been re-imbursed the amount, the charges obviously upset them and they posted a video on Youtube shot in-flight, which hit 200,000 views in a few hours. The issue was covered on mainstream media, and received an angry emotional outburst from thousands over Twitter and community forums.
In the end, Delta Airlines relented by posting on their blog that the charges will be refunded and policy changed. They still kept getting angry comments on their blog.

So we’ve now done an independent analysis of the situation, mentioning the key facts, analyzing the tweets (using a cool sentiment analysis tool). We also assessed Delta’s response to the crises management framework we released after the ashcloud last year. And we’ve shared it all in the slide deck below for your benefit.