I write this complaint as an avid traveler and frequent flyer to let you know that I intend to NEVER fly Delta again. I have traveled around the world on a great number of airlines, both domestic and international, and I can say hands-down that Delta is the absolute worst. After the last few shining examples Delta has provided me of practices an airline should never engage in, I am left wondering why I didn’t swear off the airline after the first of these offenses. You can be sure that I will not be making that mistake again.
Cases in point:
October, 2009. I was scheduled to fly on a Delta flight to Costa Rica for a consulting project. After checking in online and arriving at Detroit airport more than one hour before my scheduled red-eye flight, I was told that I could not drop my checked bag at bag drop and proceed to security. The reason I was given was that the check-in staff were “already backed up” as a result of the recent Northwest-Delta merger and could not figure out how to use their own computer systems. As a result I was made to wait in the obscenely long line for check-in and by the time I arrived at the front desk to check my bag in I was told that I “cannot check-in with less than 30 minutes before the flight”. When I tried to reason with the staff and point out that I had already checked in online the day before and just needed to drop my bag, I was told that I would not be allowed to board my flight and that the next flight to Costa Rica was the following evening. Only after several hours of arguing with desk staff and customer service reps via telephone was I booked on an alternate flight to Costa Rica in order to arrive in time to start my consulting project. However, this was only after spending the entire day from dawn to dusk fighting my way onto a flight, a right that I had already paid for without all of the added stress and frustration, not to mention my time.
August, 2010. Shortly before flying back to New York from Costa Rica, I had a family emergency that called on me to change my return flight to arrive in Detroit rather than New York. I called customer service to change my flight and was told that there was no possible way to change my flight. I was willing and able to pay any change fee necessary to connect to a flight to Detroit rather than New York on my layover in Atlanta but was not allowed to make this change. This is the most absurd policy I have ever heard of as I would think that charging customers change fees would be a good source of income for the airline as well as an option that should without a doubt be offered to passengers. Without any other option, I booked a flight on an alternate airline from Atlanta to Detroit. Not only was I not refunded for this final leg of my journey that I was unable to take but I was actually told by Delta that I would need to pay $250 to cancel the last leg of the journey. I mean WHAT?! You have got to be kidding me. Additionally, Delta staff refused to let me take my own bags with me in Atlanta and as such the bags arrived in New York without me and had to be sent to Lansing, MI for airport pick-up at the airline’s expense. In the meantime I was without my clothes, toiletries, etc. If it is the intention of Delta to inconvenience its passengers as much as humanly possible, I would say Delta definitely delivered on this flight.
March, 2011. After vouching NEVER to fly Delta again, my mother had unknowingly booked me on a Delta flight for a routine trip home. Of course there were problems as with Delta there always are. I was booked on a 9am flight from New York to Detroit only to receive an email from Delta a few hours beforehand telling me that my flight had been cancelled. This cancellation was clearly not weather-related as the skies in both New York and Michigan were clear and when asked why the flight was cancelled at check-in, the gate and via customer service line I was still not given any answer. I would’ve expected to be given a flight credit or reimbursement at the very least but I was not offered either of these things. As a matter of fact, I was automatically rebooked for a flight with a stop in Washington DC that had me arriving in Detroit practically 4 hours after my scheduled arrival despite the fact that the airline had several direct flights available. After trying to reason with the staff at check-in, I was only able to secure a ticket for a 12:30pm flight from New York to Detroit which they told me was the soonest flight. To make a long story short it wasn’t as there was another flight leaving New York at 11am. To get on standby for this flight I was told I would have to pay a $50 fee despite the fact that the only reason I wanted to get on this flight was that my flight had been unjustifiably cancelled. NO STANDBY?! Are you serious? This is absolutely the most thoughtless policy I have ever heard of in my life. It is of no cost to Delta to put excess capacity to use and it is of extreme inconvenience in some cases to passengers to not have this option. Beyond all of my wildest expectations Delta has truly gone above and beyond to defy sense and logic.
This lack of customer service I have experienced time and time again is what will ultimately be the end of the company if it does not make some serious changes. As an MBA graduate, I can tell you that customer service is truly the differentiation point of the future and Delta will flounder if it cannot even meet, much less exceed, customer expectations. Why should any consumer put up with Delta’s bad behavior and senselessness when there are so many other similarly priced competitors who will treat those consumers with respect and show them some courtesy? I know one consumer who definitely won’t and I think Delta would be naïve to think that many others will not follow.
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