A Recent Delta Air Lines Experience

As I posted last week, I recently was away on vacation in Antigua. We made the plans back in June and bought our tickets, using frequent flier miles, on Delta at that time. We had booked non-stop fights between New York's JFK airport and Antigua, and were scheduled to leave on Wednesday, Nov. 25 (the day before Thanksgiving).

The Sunday before hand, on a whim, I decided to check our itinerary to make sure our seats were assigned and see if the times had changed at all. I log in and at the top in red letters it says that one or more pieces of our itinerary have been changed. As I look down to see what the new times are I notice something pretty amazing -- the only flight listed is my flight coming back from Antigua to New York. There is NO flight to Antigua.

Well, suffice it to say, I flew into a tizzy. How could they not alert me to the fact that they'd canceled our flight down to Antigua!! I immediately get on the phone to call Delta. Three hours later I'm still listening to elevator music and the message telling me they're experiencing higher than normal call volume. Let me say that again -- THREE HOURS LATER.

During that time, I do some online searches to see what my options might be. Delta has NO flights to Antigua on the day we're supposed to leave or the day before or the day after. Nor, do they have flights to other Caribbean islands (just in case we could maybe switch our resort). American Airlines has a couple of flights with seats left. United has one flight. There are no other available flights within that three-day period.

Then, I screw up. I have my phone on speaker phone so that I don't have to keep it to my ear for three hours. When I suddenly think I hear a real voice get on the line, I mistakenly hit the button to turn the phone off instead of just turning speaker phone off. I'm ready to start crying at this point. I'm ready to spend a couple thousand dollars to get us tickets to Antigua. But everyone is telling me Delta will put us on another flight so I should wait. Of course, I still have to get through to Delta!

The second time I call Delta I skip the 800 number and call the actual area code number. Within five minutes I'm talking to an actual person. She tells me that the earliest she can get me on a Delta flight is the 27th. I tell her, okay, put me on another carrier. At first she wants to put me on an American flight that leaves from JFK, flies to Puerto Rico where we'd have to wait 6 or 7 hours(!!!) before flying to Antigua and arriving late at night. Screw that! I tell her I want to be put on the American flight that leaves from Newark, flies to Miami, where it leaves less than 2 hours later and gets us to Antigua only 2 hours later than we were originally scheduled to arrive.

She looks it up, says she can do it and books it for us.

Ok, that's taken care of. I await my e-mail confirmation from Delta. When I get it I look at it to make sure everything is in order. Wait - the date of departure says Nov. 24, the day before we were supposed to depart.

I call Delta back (again using the area code number and not the 800 number). I get a different sales rep. I tell her what happened. She looks up the American flights and says, American doesn't have any seats on the flights departing on the 25th. Well, why didn't the other sales rep tell me this? The lady I'm talking to tells me she can put me on the Puerto Rico flight if I want. No, I don't want. I'd rather fly down a day early. Thankfully, I'm able to get the resort (St. James's Club & Villas) to let us come down a day early for a minimal fee.

In the end I suppose we should say thank you to Delta since we got to go down to Antigua a day early, and even avoided the day before Thanksgiving airline rush. But we were lucky we had the flexibility to do that. A lot of people wouldn't have. And it doesn't change the fact that Delta never even bothered to tell us the flight had been canceled.

When I got back from my vacation I sent them an e-mail with my complaint and was told their records showed they had tried to call and e-mail me way back on Oct. 8.

Unless their idea of trying to call is ringing once then hanging up, or getting voice mail and not leaving a message, there is no way they tried to call. I'd have noticed a message saying my flight had been canceled. And as for e-mail, I got the original itinerary via e-mail, I got the new itinerary via e-mail, I get all their advertisement e-mails and frequent flier monthly reports but I never got an e-mail telling me my flight had been canceled.

They can tell me their records tell them they contacted me until dooms day, they are lying. They made no effort to contact me -- and I'm an Elite flyer with Delta.

And to top it all off, when we got back one of our suitcases was soaked in fish juice! Don't even ask me how that happened. Luckily enough everything inside was okay, but the suitcase had to be thrown out. I included this incident in my e-mailed complaint. They didn't even mention it in their response.

I told them loud and clearly that they had lost me as a loyal customer. Given any choice at all, I will avoid Delta. I used to like them, now they definitely top my Worst Airlines list.

Delta doesn't care about its customers. They continue to make this very clear. Because of their size they know people usually won't have a choice and will have to fly them, so they put no effort into customer service, no effort into customer care.

Let me say here quickly, I do not mean the flight attendents who, as with any airline, can be either really good or not so good. I mean Delta Air Lines, the company, considers its customers to be worthless, as worthless as the bags they casually toss into the cargo hold of its planes.

If you have a choice, send Delta a message -- I am the reason you exist and if you won't treat me with the respect and service that I deserve, then I will take my business elsewhere.