To Whom It may Concern,
On Friday, 9/14 I was traveling from New Orleans to Lexington, KY with a connecting flight in Atlanta and would like to share my Delta experience with you. What began as a routine trip quickly changed upon learning all flights into Atlanta were delayed due to the remnants of hurricane Humberto making its way across Atlanta. I want to note I was not informed of this when I checked in at the ticket counter. Now I'm a reasonable person and was not upset by the onset of delays. My complaints stem from how Delta handled the ensuing situation and the customer service my fellow travelers and I experienced as a result. Assuming my 6:30pm flight from New Orleans was delayed and my 10:20pm flight from Atlanta took off on time, I would miss my connecting flight. I asked two different ticket agents and neither offered me any assistance. I called the Delta help line and the information I received there said my flight was still scheduled to depart at 10:30pm. So as a precaution, I moved up to an earlier flight that was also delayed and boarded the flight around 5:15pm. For unexplained reasons, the plane did not take off for another two hours. Upon landing in Atlanta around 10pm, I saw my flight had indeed been delayed until 11:50pm, but another flight from earlier in the day had not departed yet, so I ran over to the gate to see if the flight had any seats left. I ran into a colleague of mine at the gate who had been at the airport since 2pm, and she was very agitated. She said the departure time for this flight had been pushed back several times without any explanation. As this flight was completely full, I headed back to the terminal with my original flight to wait it out. By the time I reached my gate, the other flight had been cancelled and my flight had been pushed back to 12:30am. Because of all the delays, the airport was in chaos. I waited in line for 45 minutes at the Delta service desk to inquire about my flight, because I suspected it may be cancelled, though I wasn't sure why at the time. The Delta associate told me my flight would not be cancelled. However, my departure time kept getting pushed back. By 12:15am, my posted departure time was 2:50am!!! I couldn't believe this to be true, but it was clearly posted. The Delta associates at the gate were too busy to ask because they were dealing with another flight cancellation that involved them deboarding an entire plane that would have been en route to Pensacola, FL. This flight was cancelled because it would be landing after 12am, which is against the local noise ordinances. Finally after the angry passengers from this flight were clear of the gate, the associate at my gate informed us the flight to Lexington was cancelled without any further explanation or direction except to head to the ticket counter to rebook. It turned out, after some persistent inquiries from several passengers, that both of the flights to Lexington were cancelled due to staffing issues as some of the crew members timed out. I don't understand why that was allowed to happen. If you know a staff member is going to time out, it seems that actions could be taken to call in someone, especially at the largest Delta hub. Furthermore, I don't understand why it took so long to let us know the flight had been cancelled, when it was probably known well in advance there would not be a crew available. This would have been much more conducive to your guests making the best of the situation instead of them sitting at a gate for multiple hours and becoming increasingly agitated as their flight departures kept getting pushed back without explanation. When I arrived at the ticket counter I was greeted by a line several hundred people long and only two ticket agents. Just when it seemed the situation couldn't get worse, it did. On a side note, my colleague that I ran into from the earlier flight to Lexington had rented a car and drove 7 hours to Lexington rather than waiting in this line. She same to this decision after the line hadn’t moved for an hour. Unfortunately she didn’t have my cell phone number, so I was stuck in Atlanta. I wouldn't get out of this line for 3 1/2 hours. I called the Delta help line again and waited to talk to a person so I could see about being on one of the early flights out of Atlanta, and was promptly informed the airport had locked down all of the flights to Lexington, that I couldn’t be helped over the phone, and my only option was to wait in line. Other people in line around me were being told they would be lucky to get on a late afternoon or evening flight. I called back again and this time the agent told me I had been booked on an 11:15am flight with no explanation how this happened, but I wasn’t complaining. Not when a lady next to me, who was a Sky Miles member was booked on a Sunday flight because her flight had originated with Continental and the agent on the phone refused to help her. I decided it would be pointless to leave this line without a boarding pass and would wait it out. After waiting in line about an hour 3 people near me decided to rent a car and drive back to Lexington. They told me they were on the 6am flight, so I promptly called Delta and talked to the only helpful person I encountered during the whole experience. She rebooked me to the 6am flight with no difficulties. I asked her if the flights had ever been locked down so she wouldn’t have been able to do this, and she said no that was untrue and asked why I thought that was the case. Now that I’m on the early flight, I’m worried I won’t make it through this line in time because it is going very slowly. Around 3am, one of the two ticket agents got up to leave and unsurprisingly, guests in line were very vocally complaining. She actually said to the 300+ people in line that she was tired and had been here all day. At this point I’m worried the situation is about to turn ugly as there were some very angry people who were tired of being treated like cattle and being kept completely in the dark about their flight situations. Consequently, the agent went back to her desk and security came over to keep an eye on the crowd. It wasn’t too long after this incident that additional ticket agents arrived and the line started moving. I finally received my boarding pass and was very thankful since several people around me were still on afternoon flights. There was still one more surprise though. After the flight had boarded the first couple of zones, the Delta associate at the gate informed the remaining passengers that she was very sorry because most of us were from cancelled flights but this flight was short a pilot and would be delayed until a pilot could be called in. The only positive I see in this, though only in retrospect, is at least I was accurately informed of the situation. After a one hour and fifteen delay, the flight departed and I arrived in Lexington without further incident.
I realize I went into lengthy detail about my experience, but I want to truly convey what an utter failure Delta’s customer service was during this entire situation. To me the worst aspect of the situation is the poor communication from Delta associates. It seemed like no one was in charge and the associates were left to fend for themselves, and as a result did whatever they could to keep guests from getting their faces. In this case that meant waiting to the last possible moment before informing guests of flight cancellations. Even though my flight cancellation was entirely Delta’s fault as was the ensuing scenario, no compensation was ever offered. In the future, I am very unlikely to use Delta ever again until I feel that a repeat of this situation will not happen. Delays due to uncontrollable circumstances are completely acceptable, but poor customer service is never acceptable, and I will only give my money to organizations that have great customer service.
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