Delta, Delta, Go-to-hell-ta

Welcome home!

And ... welcome to flying as we now know it, and farewell to flying as we knew it.

I did the "sleep on the floor of the airport" thing due to missing a connecting flight and not being able to find a hotel room, meanwhile being without my luggage (Houston airport November 2005). Not pleasant. Blocking out the bright lights in the ceiling by putting your head under a chair and your jacket over your face, and wondering why the two guys next to you think it's okay to keep chattering at 1:00 in the morning. But this was not the airline's fault.

Maybe you're cutting off your nose to spite your face; I find that United and Delta had more legroom than American for the flights I took, and United doesn't charge for headphones (or at least they didn't) for in-flight movies, so I'd hate to rule out Delta completely.

On the other hand, from what you've described, Delta deserves to be snubbed. Maybe all the young people had done stints at Starbucks where customer service and friendliness is the creed, but that doesn't excuse the older Delta staff who should have known (and acted) better.

Good luck complaining to Delta and perhaps getting some kind of compensation (e.g., a r/t domestic ticket to anywhere Delta flies? - as if you'd want to use it!!!).

Hopefully you can turn this into a column and it will be read from coast to coast. Maybe then Delta will do something about the red faces this should give them.

You got caught in the "European push" which occurs around 6-7 pm at JFK. It is basically where all the tranatlantic flights queue up to depart. I had the misfortune of being on a Jetblue flight that departed late from the gate and we sat on the tarmac for a good two hours before we could depart because of that. As for customer service, that went out pretty much after 9/11 and as a longer term trend associated with deregulation. Of course with the regulated airfares, the airlines had to compete on service, since price was set but alas we pretty much have the air travel system we deserve. At least our flights are cheap :-p

I forwarded this to the Consumerist.

Welcome back. I've always wanted to go to Turkey. Anytime I travel now, I can't help but compare it to when I was younger. When I was 18 and moved to Alaska air travel there took quite a while but was pretty pleasant. Just 11 years later things were decidedly better, more routes, etc. And then September 11th. Now I agree with AnotherBeliever, if it's less than 10 hours I'd rather drive myself or take a train.

Here's a story showing how things have changed, cause this couldn't happen these days. Christmas break my first year of college, I was scheduled to fly back to Missouri to see my family. Mt. Redoubt erupted and there was so much ash in the air that all the flights were canceled. After 2-3 days they started flying again but the back up was large. So they people to just come to the airport and wait. When your name (no matter what airline your ticket was for) show up at the gate. If you weren't there in 15 minutes, you went to the bottom of the list. But the airlines provided snacks and drinks and I slept in the Fairbanks airport for 2 nights. My mother was hesitant to let me go back. :)

I Googled for

delta airlines complaints customer service

and found several hits/sites, including:

ConsumerAffairs.com - Delta Airlines

my3cents.com

Just be happy you didn't have your Kids with you then you'd have been stuck in the last two rows in front of the johns with no hope of reclining. Learned that with American last year.

My best story happened in March of 2002. My [now] wife and I had met and courted a while on E-harmony and were finally ready to meet in person. I was flying down from Minneapolis to Little Rock on Thursday at like 7 AM. Unfortunately, very few planes were getting in because of an oncoming blizzard. Our plane finally got to the gate around 1 pm from St Louis and was ready to board for the turnaround at 1:40. Whoops, need a new air crew [that rest thingy again] and we'll leave at a break in the weather around 2:30. 2:30 comes and goes, and we're still waiting for a co-pilot-- he's stuck in traffic on 494 eastbound over by the Mall of America. About 3:30 we've got a co-pilot, but no plane because now something mechanical went wrong with the de-icers. But never fear, there's an idle plane at the next gate that isn't leaving for it's destination because the blizzard will be in full force by then. Northwest grabs that one for St. Louis and we're on board by 4, with only the luggage to finish transferring over from the first plane. 4:15 and we are backing away from the gate. The captain announces that we are the LAST plane getting anywhere from MSP that afternoon, which is good because the airport was already full of stuck passengers. The good captain hangs up his mike and we are a good 20 feet from the gate when--WHAM-- wukka wukka wukka, plane shaking from side to side--what the h***, we got run into by a luggage train. There was now an 18 inch hole in the lower side of the nose cone. Needless to say, we weren't going anywhere. The lucky side of this is that since it was NWA's fault--no way you can fly with a luggage cart embedded in the side of the plane-- they pretty much had to give us vouchers and a hotel. I had a room at the Westin for the night, though I had to drive my own car. No problem. Woke up the next morning at five, got to my car at 5:30, and discovered that the entire back end was covered in a snowdrift. I had to dig with my hands to get to the trunk, where I had a kiddie shovel stowed. I somehow managed to make it to the airport by 6, and got on a flight at 8. I got to ride with some pretty funky smelling people, though.

Meanwhile, my [now] wife was waiting by the phone in Arkansas, afraid I had backed out. Needless to say, I got a cell phone for my birthday after that.

k.

Hi Rod, glad you're home safe following your trip to Turkey and your ordeal in New York.

I have now heard so many stories about the delays and lousy service of several airlines at JFK that I am coming to believe that the airport itself is a big part of the problem. I have never had to change planes at JFK, but I have done so in Cleveland and Newark (Liberty), and everything has always been as smooth as silk.

I have an acquaintance in the western US who travels to Europe but always makes sure his connecting flights are through Boston or Washington DC. He avoids JFK at all costs.

Same story, different location happened to us on Delta years ago. The only difference was that we were stranded with a 15-month-old and I was very pregnant with #2. We were traveling from CA to FL. I figured we'd be moved to the front of the line with a baby, but no. No water, nothing. (Hey, at least ya'll got water...!)

I'm a very infrequent flyer--on average probably less than once a year. Every time I do, things seem worse. My last trip was a few weeks ago (I wrote about it on my blog here). I'll need to make the same trip next year and have pretty much decided to drive instead. In one of those odd synchronicities, I've had several conversations since then with people unloading on the unpleasantness and unpredictability of flying. That latter seems especially significant--you can put up with some hassle to get where you're going quickly and inexpensively, but when the chance of a serious delay becomes a real factor in your calculations, driving starts to look better for distances where it's practical.

Like Eric W said, farewell to flying as we knew it.

I strongly believe that airlines should be forbidden from overbooking flights -- even if that means higher ticket prices for all of us. I strongly believe that airlines should be forced to have contingency plans in place for stranded passengers (food reserves, cots, blankets, pillows) -- even if that means higher ticket prices for all of us. And it's beyond obvious that the FAA needs to get its act together with the air traffic control system -- even if that means higher ticket prices for all of us.

Rod, could you please add a disclaimer that your round-trip ticket from Dallas to Istanbul was paid for by someone else--either the event organizers, or charged to the Belo expense account? Unless you made the journey out of your own savings, any cri de coeur demanding "higher ticket prices for all of us" should be either qualified thusly or rephrased as "higher ticket prices for others."

We hate flying so much that we take the train. We have family in Michigan and take the 10+ hour train trip there.

The flight from Dulles to Detroit is less than two hours, but that doesn't include driving down the beastly highways around Washington to get to the airport, find parking, get a shuttle, check in, wait in line, get randomly searched (our surname is Irani, which means lots of "random" searches), wait some more, wait on the tarmac, fly, wait on the tarmac, get the luggage, have someone from my family drive the two hours to the airport, drive the two hours home on I-94 and finally arrive. OR we could have someone drop us off at the Amtrak station, 20 minutes traffic-free from our house and get on the train. No check ins, nothing. We usually get a roomette and sleep most of the trip. We enjoy dinner and breakfast in the dining car and get to take a shower in the morning. The Amtrak station is only an hour from my parent's house. Wham! We're there, rested, showered, fed and refreshed. PLUS we spend less money. Maybe we ought to revitalize train travel in this country.

OK - someone has GOT to get rid of that stupid Evan Almighty ad that intervenes EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME I GO FROM STORY TO STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ARRGH!

Oh, and I dislike the reverse order comments too.

There - I feel much better. Sort of.