Only 13 NRA members used Delta’s discount: Killing it cost the airline $40 million tax break

It turns out, you can put a priceon values.

After Delta Air Lines announced it would end a travel discount for National Rifle Association members, Republican lawmakers in Georgia followed through on their threatto punish the company by repealing a budget provision on Thursday that included a $50 million airline fuel tax exemption, in which $40 million was set for the Atlanta-based airline.

But only 13 NRA members actually used the one-time group travel discount for the gun group’s annual meeting in Dallas this May, Delta spokesman Michael Thomas toldThe Washington Post.

That amounts to costing Delta just over $3 million per passenger for the apparently rarely used services, a consequence from public pressure on businesses to cut ties with the NRA following the school shootingin Parkland, Fla.

The alleged gunman used a legally acquired AR-15 — a rifle touted as American as apple pie by the NRA, the country’schief gun lobby.

The NRA’s main Twitter account, quiet in the days after the Parkland killings, pointed Friday toward reports that only 13 NRA membersused the Delta discount.

“They have a backlash that will span across all gun owners, not just NRA members. seems logical,” the account tweeted. The organization linked to a Business Insider story collecting tweets of angry gun owners and NRA members beginning boycotts of their own, suggesting a backlash to the backlash that may cost Delta moredown the line.

For Delta, the decision was “not made for economic gain and our values are not for sale,” Delta’s chief executive Ed Bastian said in the statement Friday, released the day after the lawmakers followed through with their promise by overwhelmingly voting to rescind the tax breaks. Mr. Bastian said the company will further review other discounts offered to groups with a “politically divisive nature” and end those agreementsas well.

“None of this changes the fact that our home is Atlanta and we are proud and honored to locate our headquarters here. And we are supporters of the 2nd Amendment, just as we embrace the entire Constitution of the UnitedStates.”

Mr. Bastian said it was in response to “controversial statements” following the killings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and he did not want the discount to imply a company endorsement of the NRA, appearing to describe group statements like one video that suggested the media “loves” mass shootings as ratings and website view draws.