Delta's Unfriendly Skies

When I was a teenager studying literature in high school, I remember the teacher telling us that Charles Dickens had been a court stenographer as a young man. His genius for sketching such realistic characters came from his keen observations of human nature, playing out before him every day in court.

I often think of this when I travel, because I feel that public transportation offers the kind of glimpse into human character that would have sent Dickens into raptures of delight. I like to sit in airports at the gates facing the wide walkways, just observing the various types of people that walk by--their stance and gait, their accents, their conversations on cell phones, their manner of talking to their children, and especially their behavior with airline employees!

When I got to the airport at 4:00 pm, I was hoping to leave at 5:45 pm, but I learned shortly that due to rain, our flight would be delayed until about 7:00 pm. I was thankful that I had a four hour layover in New York, so I wasn't as frustrated as other passengers. The Delta area was way backed up, with all sorts of flights delayed by a few hours. Nearly everyone around me in the gate area was angry over one flight or another.

7 pm came and went and we hadn't heard anything. At 7:10 pm, the gate attendant announced that the plane had arrived and was being loaded, cleaned, refueled, etc. and we would begin boarding shortly. I rose to stand, figuring I would be sitting for while on the flight. I stood there and stood there. Finally, at almost 8:00 pm, the gate attendant announced that our flight had been canceled. Just like that. Canceled.

Apparently, with the delay, the flight crew was past their allowed hours to be "on duty" or "in the air." Delta would need a whole new flight crew and there were so few of us on the flight, they just canceled it.

All of us were aggravated, especially those who were just passing through Baltimore, but I was mostly concerned about the rest of my connections--from New York to Amsterdam to Bordeaux. How was I going to make it all the way to Bordeaux? When I went to the Delta ticket counter, I discovered a glaring problem: my entire flight was booked through Northwest and KLM in partnership. They booked me on only ONE Delta flight, which had just been canceled. The Delta representative was nice, but unhelpful: Delta doesn't fly to Bordeaux, so there wasn't much he could do. He gave me a bunch of flight numbers on a piece of notepaper and told me I would have to call KLM/Northwest to ask about other flights.

I had been very accomodating until that point. After all, it wasn't the ticket agent's fault that the flight was canceled. But there was no way that I was going home to call KLM/Northwest, with no proof of anything. I told the ticket agent it was Delta's responsibility to arrange those flights, not mine. Another thirty minutes passed while I listened to him argue with KLM personnel on his phone. He was frustrated; I was frustrated. Finally, he gave me some flight choices, leaving on Friday afternoon putting me into France on Saturday at noon.

Now, to do the math, I'm losing a day and a half of time to work on a business trip that was already only five days long. I'm losing money for the rental car that I've reserved and can't change without a penalty (because it's within 24 hours now). My family had to make special arrangements to pick me up at the airport tonight, as well as drive me back on Friday. For all of this inconvenience, I was compensated ZERO dollars. I was upgraded on ZERO flights. I was offered ZERO air miles on a perks plan. I was offered NOTHING but the "sincere apologies" of Delta.

I insisted that I speak to the ticket agent's superior, who did nothing. She just repeated her apologies. I told her flat out that I considered it the worst customer service that I'd ever seen. She apologized again. I told her that I would never fly Delta again. She apologized. I walked out to my father's truck five hours after my mom dropped me off, with nothing to show for the whole affair, except that, by that point, I finished the novel I was going to read on the plane. As far as I'm concerned, Delta owes me something for that, too!