Delta Airlines

I haven't flown Delta years and now I regret coming back to Delta. My flight

to Palm Beach, Florida from Phoenix, AZ was delayed 5 hours in Atlanta

because the planes landing gear 'locked' light was not functional. This was

flight #1412 on Tue Jan 29. They attempted to repair it and have us in the

air in no time, which turned into a full blown repair, which turned into

unrepairable and put us on the next flight out. I lost 5 hours, but these

things happen. A week later, I arrive at PBI airport, board my flight back

to Phoenix. This is flight 1578 on Mon Feb 4 scheduled to leave at 7pm. They

hold the plane on the ground for 40 minutes, filling up the empty seats with

passengers from a cancelled flight to LGA. Now, my connecting flight to

Phoenix is at 9:30, flight 1605 Gate E06, and we land and I rush off the

plane and race to my gate only to discover the gate has been changed and is

now A19, so I rush to that gate, I see the plane is still on the ground, I

present my ticket, I am out of breath, my arms and legs hurt from hauling my

luggage for a half mile across the atlanta airport and they tell me the

plane door is closed and I cannot board. In the mean time, the new yorkers,

who my plane was delayed for, have a flight leaving at 9:40 at the gate

right next door to where we arrived. They all make their connection. I was

told to go to the ticket counter to get a ticket to the next flight out of

Phoenix, which I am told is 12 hours away.

This is unacceptable as I have a dentist appointment that I will be billed

for if I do not appear. I am given a discount coupon to stay at a local

hotel. I am not prepared to stay over night. I am a businessman and I have

work to get done and now Delta is stealing 12 more hours of my time on top

of the five they already took without my permission.

Delta could have held the connecting flight to phoenix for five minutes,

just as they held my initial flight for the passengers of the cancelled

Delta flight to LGA. Clearly this is discrimination. Those on the cancelled

flight were given preferential treatment and caused an artificial delay

created by Delta which has turned my schedule updside down and is costing me

more than you can imagine! The lady 'Nicole', a large black woman, started

to tell me my flight was delayed due to weather. I explained to her the

flight was held so Delta could fill all the seats with passengers from the

cancelled flight and the weather was fine. She says Delta never holds

flights for other passengers. I explained I was on the plane and I saw

beautiful weather and saw passengers board after the doors of the plane were

scheduled to be closed for a full forty minutes. She continued to provoke me

and suggest I write in if I don't like and insited weather was the cause of

the delay. I asked for a supervisor immediatly. Eventually I was given a

complimentary hotel room, but I am still not in Phoenix. I can understand a

delay of a couple hours once in a while, but this has effected me on each

leg of my trip coming and going. How will Delta reimburse me for the 17

hours I have now wasted because Delta did not keep their commitment with me?

I am requesing reimbursement also for my missed appointment, which was

scheduled a FULL DAY after I was to arrive in Phoenix.

They replied:

Thank you for your e-mail describing the problem you experienced.

Your time is valuable, and operating on schedule is equally important to us.

However, in the process of operating scheduled service over many different

routes each day, occasional mechanical malfunctions, adverse weather, and

other interruptions to routine performance plans are unavoidable. These are

situations faced by all airlines and no air carrier can guarantee that all

flights will depart or arrive on schedule. Nevertheless, we are sorry you

were inconvenienced.

We regret we did not meet your expectations on this occasion, and I can

understand your frustration and disappointment. However, we hope you will

understand that we do not reimburse the expenses you requested and must

respectfully decline your request.

Please accept our apology for the unfavorable impression you received in

this instance. We appreciate your selection of Delta and will always

consider it a privilege to be of service.

Sincerely,

Daniel Tancak

Online Customer Support Desk

http://www.delta.com

Then I replied:

I find your response unacceptable and will be sharing this story with the

listeners of my radio talk show each weekday throughout the rest of this

month. I'll be sure that all of our nationwide and worldwide listeners know

that it took Delta 33 hours to get me from Phoenix to Palm Beach and did not

offer an explanation as to why new york passengers were given preferential

treatment that caused an excessive delay.

Please cancel my Sky Miles account immediately, as I will never fly Delta

again. I am also going to share this story everyday this month on my

nationwide radio broadcast so my listeners can decide for themselves if they

want to risk repeating my experience should they choose to fly Delta.

Please forward this message on to your superiors and I will forward it on to

your PR company personally.

Delta Air Lines Corporate Communications

Richard H Anderson, Chief Executive Officer

Kent Landers

Director External Communications (US)

Betsy Talton

General Manager National Media Relations

Anthony Black

Senior Manager Regional Media Relations

Susan Chana Elliott

Senior Manager Regional Media Relations

Katie Connell

Senior Manager Lifestyle/Leisure Media Relations

And they repied:

We are very concerned about the unfortunate situation you described.

Flying with Delta should be enjoyable, and I am sorry for any role we may

have played which caused your travel experience to be otherwise. The

inconvenience you experienced does not support our goal of providing a high

level of service and value to our customers. Customer service is very

important to us, and we are working hard to transform our company.

According to the rules of the program, the credit earned in your SkyMiles

account will remain active until December 31, 2010. SkyMiles will not expire

as long as there is qualifying activity at least once every two years.

Within two years of inactivity with a zero balance the account will be

closed.

We value the relationship you have with Delta Air Lines and would be

delighted to have another chance to restore your trust and confidence in our

service.

Sincerely,

Loren Byers

Online Customer Support Desk

http://www.delta.com

And I replied:

Please be aware that I am reporting this abusive cancellation and delay of

planes to the FAA. The four flights I booked were all about half-full.

But

after Delta manipulated the planes, 3 of the 4 planes were packed without a

single seat. The financial reasons for this are obvious, but on the 3rd

flight, it was reported in the Delta computer system that the flight was

delayed due to weather, rather then the truth that the flight was delayed to

make room for other passengers. That delayed the plane by more than 40

minutes and resulted with me arguing with a Delta Customer Service rep named

Nicole who insisted the flight was delayed due to weather because that’s

what her computer said. When I corrected her why the flight was delayed, her

response was "I'm just telling you what my computer says." And my response

was "I'm just telling you the real reason" and her response was "Well,

that's my computer says" and my response was "well, I was actually on the

plane and I know exactly why it was delayed" at which point another customer

service rep offered to step in and Nicole said to her, "Oh no, I got this

one." As if I was challenging her to fisticuffs! I asked to speak with a

supervisor before the computer system mis-information was recognized.

Clearly the FAA has rules about this and I am going to do my best to ensure

these questionable business practices of cancelling and delaying fights by

12 hours just to fill a plane to capacity at the inconvenience of the

passengers are brought to the attention of the FAA and my entire listening

audience.

I have a cancelled dental appointment and an extra day of covered parking

and a full day of lost work, all resulting from this artificially created

delay practiced by your company to fill planes to capacity.

I know Delta will never do this to me again, because I will never fly Delta

again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I look forward to your next boilerplate reply.

Final response from Delta:

Thank you for your most recent e-mail. We regret your continued displeasure

with our previous "boilerplate" responses.

However, we appreciate your feedback and encourage you to forward any

additional comments to our corporate offices at the address below:

Delta Air Lines

Customer Care

P.O. Box 20980

Atlanta, GA 30320-2980

Thank you for the opportunity to give this matter our final review. Any

additional correspondence via e-mail will be kept on file.

Sincerely,

Joy Blessing

Online Customer Support Desk

http://www.delta.com

Sincerely,

Mr. Carey Holzman

Co-host: www.computeramerica.com

The Business Talk Radio Network

The LifeStyle Talk Radio Network

#1 podcast New York Times/PodCast Bunker

Author: The Healthy PC (McGraw/Hill)

Author: Smart Computing magazine

Author: CMP Media's www.techbuilder.org

Email User

www.careyholzman.com

602-527-9723

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