Delta Sucks

I have a story to tell. It is a story about how a company can attempt to make your life miserable for absolutely no reason. Delta Airlines, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

My family and I planned to travel to Upper Michigan to see my dad and other family over Christmas and New Year's. We bought tickets to fly on Christmas Day--cheaper price, less crowded airport. We checked in for the flight online the previous day, as I normally try to do. We had a ride arranged to the airport. Everything looked good.

And then the first sign of trouble: We got an e-mail saying our flight was canceled. We were planning to fly to Milwaukee. Delta had canceled our flight to Milwaukee (MKE) but re-booked us on a flight to Minneapolis (MSP), and then a later flight from MSP to MKE. This would cost us many hours of additional travel time and put us into MKE at a time when we probably wouldn't want to drive all the way to Upper Michigan (driving late at night, on Christmas day when nothing was open). We wouldn't make Christmas dinner with my dad.

Why was our flight canceled? There was a storm system moving towards the east coast that was threatening to dump an inch, maybe two (!), of snow on Atlanta. Forget about the fact that the Christmas Day forecast for Atlanta called for weather comfortably above freezing and the rain (not snow) was not expected until evening, possible turning to snow at night. Nonetheless, Delta started canceling about half their flights (based on what I saw on the flight status boards when we got to the airport the next day).

We considered alternate travel plans. It didn't matter to us whether we flew into MSP or MKE, either would work. If we could get a rental car out of MSP, why bother with MKE at all? So we booked a rental car for MSP. It was cost prohibitive to rent in MSP and return in MKE, so we needed to ask Delta to just skip flying us from MSP to MKE (saving them the bother and saving us time) and change our return flight from MKE-ATL to MSP-ATL at any time on 1/1/11 or 1/2/11. Didn't matter to us. We did our research and found that Delta had 11 direct flights from MSP-ATL on both days.

Well, we would have asked Delta this if only they had answered the phone. They didn't even put us on hold and lie to us about how long it would take for a person to come on the line. Everyone must have been calling. Which only meant that the next day at the airport was going to be fun. And by "fun" I mean "hell." Which it was.

Because the person giving us a ride had other commitments early in the morning, we headed to the airport at 5:30a and got there before 6:00a for an 8:30a flight (both the original flight to MKE and the new flight to MSP left at nearly the same time). We didn't have a problem with this given that we appreciated the lift anyway, but in this situation we felt like we would need extra time. And so we did. We needed every minute of the extra time we had.

First thing we noticed were the tons of canceled flights. Due to snow. Yeah right. Flights to Fort Lauderdale, New Orleans, San Juan, and many other sun-drenched locations all canceled due to snow.

We got in line around 6a. We waited in line for almost an hour. Finally, a little before 7a we trudged up to the counter and started what was to be an hour-plus ordeal.

We explained our situation and said that we were not interested in flying to MKE and wasting our whole day in airports. Either airport (MSP or MKE) worked for us. So why burden Delta with flying us to MKE? Let us off in MSP and be done with us, but please set us up with a return flight out of MSP rather than MKE. Turns out that they had plenty of room on those flights, the Delta person at the counter told us so. Seemed like a win-win to me.

They said no. Any particular reason, I asked? No, just can't to it. It's against policy. Your destination is MKE. Any change in destination requires a change fee of $150 per person.

This didn't make any sense to me. Delta was canceling flights for no reason (weather was partly cloudy, maybe 40 degrees, no precipitation (yet, and not for some time). They were going to spend more fuel and more manpower on their part. It wouldn't cost them anymore to fly us back form MSP than MKE given that they had plenty of available capacity on the MSP-ATL flights (remember, they told us that directly). This would make our lives much easier. And yet they wouldn't do it.

I further explained to them that I don't need their help in determining my destination. I know what my destination is. And in this particular case it was neither MKE nor MSP, but that either one would work to get me to my ultimate destination. I'm not sure they ever fully comprehended that.

So at that point I became "that guy." The guy I always bitch about. The guy who won't just get his damn boarding passes and move on, to keep the line moving. In my defense, I wasn't the only one. We saw several other groups of people having the same problem, for about the same amount of time.

In summary: I literally stood at the Delta counter for over an hour. Arguing, pleading, begging, demanding, doing everything I could think of to talk some sense into them and to find someone who had the authority to make an exception to the mindless policies Delta has.

All this after waiting in line for nearly an hour and on four hours of sleep. Which reminds me, my girls literally fell asleep on the airport floor and took naps while I argued with the morons who work for Delta.

I literally argued with them for an hour. Literally an hour. The original person we spoke with couldn't help us. He explained that he couldn't approve the change of the return trip origin from MKE to MSP. I asked over and over again, "Well, who CAN make that decision?" He called over his supervisor. It took a while but she came over. She said no, she wouldn't do that. It's against policy. I kept asking "Who CAN make that decision?" I was told to call customer service, the same number that wouldn't answer the previous night. I was told that they, at the counter, couldn't change the flights without a "waiver code" from someone with more authority.

So I called customer service, without much hope at this point. I think that the ticket agent at the counter thought we would leave while we made that call. He thought wrong. I told him that I was going to make this call right here and now while we stood in front of him. I wasn't going anywhere until this was resolved.

Now at this point you, gentle reader (as Ms. Manners would say), are probably wondering why I'm being such a dick about all this. My justification: Delta is flat-out lying to us about why they are canceling flights. There is no snow. They are canceling flights to places where there is absolutely no expectation of snow. There is a deeper story here, which we may never know. Maybe a lot of pilots called in "sick" because it was Christmas Day, I have no idea. But it sure as hell was not because of "snow." Furthermore, Delta has in their power the ability to make things right by simply changing my return flight, by putting me on a flight where they have plenty of extra capacity.

I was further egged on by Delta's insipid justifications for their policies. "Well, I'm sure it's for your safety," I was told, among many other lies that I can't remember off-hand. Yeah, right. Remember, they are still flying out of Atlanta. And still flying into MKE. Other people on our flight from Atlanta to MSP were simply trying to get to Washington, D.C. And they were re-routed through MSP. All to avoid "snow." By flying from a non-snowy airport (Atlanta) to a snowy airport (MSP) back to a non-snowy airport. That's right, in order to avoid "snow" Delta routed people through an airport where they had plenty of snow.

My heart sank when they said that it would be 13-19 minutes before a representative would be available. That I could leave my number and I would receive an automated call-back at that time. We were going to have to stall. I have no idea all the stuff I said while I waited. I do remember a couple things, though. At one point I asked the Delta counter person, "I know you have to say stuff like that [that it's for our safety and other such lies], it's your job, but don't you ever get tired of it? Doesn't it wear on you, looking people in the eyes and saying that?" He didn't answer that one.

Ultimately customer service did call me back. So I began the phase of the negotiation (if you can call it that) where I was talking to both the the counter agent and customer service at the same time. After getting bounced around a bit by customer service I did get to a person who approved the change. Hurray!

But all was not roses. It was taking them forever to make the changes. The person at the ticket counter couldn't give us boarding passes until the customer service person made the changes in the computer system. The flight was to take off at 8:30a. But it was 7:45a now. The counter person was telling us that he needed to check our bags quickly or we wouldn't get them on the flight.

Delta customer service said it would be "just a moment" and put me on hold. And then nothing for over 10 minutes (we were watching the clock). Apparently Delta's definition of "moment" is a little different than mine.

There was a moment of truth. They said they would make the changes. I told the ticket agent, check my bags through to Minneapolis. And crossed my fingers that the customer service agent on the phone wasn't lying to me. Luckily we got our bags checked at 7:55a or so. And we got our boarding passes at just before 8a.

We had to run through security (line was relatively short). We ran to the tram. We ran to the gate. We got to the gate just as they announced the final boarding call for our flight. Good thing we did, too, because the flight was full and many people were waiting to fly standby. If we hadn't gotten there when we did, we would have lost our seat. And there was no next flight, not for a while anyway, because many ATL-MSP flights were also canceled.

I was still worried whether our bags made it on the flight, but we were rolling the dice. Luckily when we got to MSP, our bags were also there.

I was happy that we made the changes we did. We got on the road at 11a or so from MSP. Weather looked good so we took the direct route through Hayward, Clam Lake, Mellon, etc. But it started snowing fairly heavily along the way and driving conditions were tough. I had to slow to 30 mph or so for long stretches of time, the car was sliding so much--that's how bad it was. I would have hated to make the drive late at night. I'm very happy we didn't take the flight from MSP-MKE where we would have gotten a much later start and had to drive the treacherous roads in the dark.


In summary, Delta lied and used snow as an excuse to cancel flights. They refused to make a reasonable change. And I didn't take it. I continued to keep saying, if you can't approve this, who can? Let me talk to that person. I worked the counter agent and I worked the customer service agent on the phone while talking to the counter agent to stall him. It was epic. We got approved 30 minutes before flight time. Luggage barely made it on board. We got to the gate just as they announced final call. It was amazing and exhausting. It was necessary, to get here in time. I hope I don't have to go through that again--although I will if I have to. I got them to change and I got us here on time.


In retrospect, my "ask" of Delta is: Just tell me the truth. And make reasonable accommodations when you force changes on people. You canceled flights because it was Christmas day and you had a lot of nearly empty planes. So you dropped many flights. Re-routed people through other hubs. I get that. But when you do that, just allow me to change my plans, too, if it doesn't adversely affect you.

Also remember, this whole fiasco at the airport could have been avoided if Delta had simply answered the phone the night before, when they canceled our tickets. Just answer the damn phone. It's not that complicated.


Post script, January 4, 2011

From the linked article, it said:
"Delta is offering customers whose flight plans may be affected by winter weather across the Southeast and East 'the ability to make one-time changes to their travels schedules without fees. Delta's weather advisory encourages customers to consider postponing or rerouting their travel to avoid possible inconvenience from expected flight delays.'

"Customers 'booked on Delta-ticketed flights to, from or through' several cities 'may immediately rebook for travel before or after their original travel dates as long as new flights are ticketed and rescheduled travel begins by Dec. 29.'"

This is exactly what I tried to do, and they simply would not allow it (not until I really pressed the issue). Delta LIED.


On our return flight we landed about 45 minutes later than scheduled (slightly late departure coupled with having to pull out of the landing because we were "too close" to the jet in front of us because the jet in front of us was going too slow, according to our pilot). And then we had to wait literally an hour and fifteen minutes for our luggage. Way to go, Delta.