Delta Screws Man Out Of Family Trip, Business Conference, WSJ Interview, And Two Flights
Wow, the folks at Delta really must hate the creative director behind and star of those UPS whiteboard commercials, Andy Azula. On the open letter he published today, he notes that he's a frequent-flyer with Platinum status on Delta, and until this past June one of their "biggest fans." Then Delta forced him, his wife, and his twin seven-year-olds to wait 13 hours in the Richmond, VA airport, while their luggage remained trapped on a plane that was forever "almost fixed."
You can read the full letter here, but here's the gist of how Andy's Delta experience went:
You see, our flight was delayed due to a mechanical problem on our plane. Over the course of the next 13 hours we sat in the terminal at Richmond as flight after flight after flight all departed on time to Atlanta. Except, of course, ours. An entire airplane full of people – all of whom had gotten up early to catch the first flight of the day - watched helplessly as every other plane departed incident-free.
And since our bags were on the plane (we had all already been seated, before we were asked to de-board) we couldn't even get our luggage off the plane and go home. Also, we kept being told our plane was almost fixed.
I took the initiative at noon to book us on the 5pm flight to Atlanta. I called Delta (five times in fact – you can check) to confirm and re-reconfirm again. I was continually reassured that my family had guaranteed seats on that 5pm flight. I was, in fact, on the phone with you as the Delta employees at the gate refused to give us our seats - on a flight we had already been confirmed on. And I never even heard an "I'm sorry."
Consequently, I missed a few things in Atlanta: The Direct Marketing Association's conference – of which I was the guest speaker. It was a paid event and the DMA was understandably shocked, mortified and embarrassed by the situation. They had to offer refunds to all their attendees.
I also missed my Wall Street Journal interview.
I also missed my meeting.
What's worse, he said, was that his children spent the day crying and stressed out, wondering why they couldn't go see their grandparents or go back home. Do you think these kids will want to be Delta customers in the future (provided Delta is around)?
I had to promise my children that I would not make them fly on an airplane anytime soon. They used to LOVE to fly. They simply cannot understand why things are so unfair.
The good news is, Delta has lost thousands of dollars in what are most likely business-class flights from Andy for the time being. Maybe competing airlines can provide some minimum of customer service and keep his business for the rest of 2009 and beyond.
Since returning on June 21st, I have flown 5 round trip flights to Las Vegas, Atlanta and New York. None of those flights have been on Delta.
I am now prepping my travels for the next three months, which include multiple flights to Los Angeles, St Louis, New York, Orlando, London, Berlin, Singapore and Shanghai.
In fact, I am literally flying MORE than I ever have in my life!
But until I receive some sort of apology, I will continue to adjust my schedule to avoid Delta.
"Letter to Delta" [AndyAzula.blogspot.com]
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Comments:
I've only flown with Delta once. It was on one of their Connection (read: flying minivan) flights from BWI to Logan. They didn't have any ballast and had to ask like four people to get off. It was just grand.
I cannot remember the airline, but it was one of the big ones. I flew less then two weeks after an incident where an engine had fallen off one of their planes. While waiting to leave the terminal, suddenly, we were told there would be a delay. A maintenance guy came on the plane to fix something in the cockpit. We were left sitting in our seats, no drinks offered, for almost an hour. We were finally told that there was an issue with the pilot's chair needing to be reattached or something.
I made a joke about how we didn't really care about the pilot's chair, just keep the engines on. All the passengers laughed. The flight crew did not.
This is an issue with flying.. From what I gather you were to fly in I would guess that morning since you said everyone woke up early.. This is a very sad thing that flying has come to this but I would only suggest fly the night before and spring for a $100-$200 hotel room as it is worth doing that and being at the city you need to be then spending 13 hours and then missing everything. That would even at $200 only be about $15.38/Hour for your time which I don't know about you but I feel is worth it plus the publicity of the wall street journal, speaker, ect would way out way going early. I am not blaming you just noting that airlines cannot be trusted and if you have to be somewhere 100% and especially have kids and more trying going a day early. Not that it is doable every time and you never know when something will come up but I am sure you do not normally have 3 such important things every single time you fly.
Maybe it was karma payback for those horrible UPS whiteboard commercials.
I can't TIVO past them fast enough.
@Sheogorath: Isnt' a technical something that happens in Football? I dunno, I'm unfamiliar with the sport as Madden is too expensive for me to purchase for my Xbox 360.
Minor B-list celebrity & family get fucked by B-list airline.
NEXT!
Why didn't he just mail himself and his family through UPS?
I'm sure if he had used Same Day or Overnight shipping, he would have gotten there faster than through Delta. I would think his UPS "discount" would be cheaper than the airfare anyway.
Perhaps he just didn't want to be yet another lost or mis-delivered UPS package...
@Tian (www.tian.cc): If this dude is B-list, then I must be E or F list because I vomited once in public and garnered some applause.
I can't see how they can get away with NOT giving some sort of voucher to the people for food. Can they do it because they are 'almost fixed?'
I hate most all forms of direct marketing as much as a I hate Delta.
Maybe you should write a song (or a commercial) about it!
First of all, Delta screwed up, so I am not defending them.
But...
Why didn't you buy new tickets on a different airline if it was that critical to get there? At least a ticket for yourself... what's that, a few hundred bucks from the The Direct Marketing Association instead of them cancelling the whole event?
I'm assuming you're relatively well off. Get a nearby hotel room for the kids or send the family home. Tell the airline to call you on your cell phone when the plane's ready. Either that or the luggage flies without you. It'll find its way to you eventually.
@Fresh-Fest-1986: I doubt any viewers have ever applauded about his UPS White-board commercials.
Don't sell yourself short, buddy.
Keep vomiting and one day you will be on American Got Talent!
You're blaming the victim.
Flying earlier doesn't solve the problem. He could have been flying the day before, to which you'd say "well, you should fly 2 days earlier..."
What, you're just going to keep saying "Well, you should fly 'n' days early where" where 'n' approaches infinity? At that point, you're basically telling the guy "you should have had the insight to make sure you were born in your destination city - then you wouldn't have to take that flight at all!"
And why should he have to spend more money (hundreds on a room and extra meals) simply because the airline can't be trusted to get you to your destination on time? That's not a failing of the passenger - that's a failing of an airline that deserves to go out of business if it can't provide decent service to its customers.
Yes, stuff happens, but in this case, Delta seems to have had plenty of chances (13 hours!) to try and squeeze those displaced passengers onto other flights - but didn't. Even when the poster tried to do that himself - Delta wouldn't let him! They wouldn't even get his luggage off the plane, that had been "nearly fixed" for 13 hours, so he could go home!
He did everything he was supposed to - bought the tickets, paid for the tickets, got to the airport early enough so he and his family could make it through security theater, and they even got on the plane!
Stop blaming the victim here. The airline screwed up, and deserves the raking it's getting over the coals.
Never check a bag. Never check a bag. Never check a bag. It makes the cabin a mess, but people don't check luggage so that they may walk away when they have this kind of problem. That is hard to do when traveling with children, I'm sure.
Sadly, this is pretty standard for Delta. I live in Atlanta, and at one time had more than half a million miles in my Delta account. They I got fed up--fed up with the manufactured delays to fill planes, fed up with the "service with a sneer" gate agents, fed up with surly flight attendants and most of all fed up with beind lied to, again and again and again. So I used up all my accumulated miles (always with partner airlines--more out of necessity than of spite, since Delta never has seats), cut up my Delta Amex, and said "good riddance."
Now AirTran gets my business, and Delta gets the finger.
@Shappie: I can't see how they can get away with NOT giving some sort of voucher to the people for food. Can they do it because they are 'almost fixed?'
They can't give away anything because they pay people with a very low skill level a high union wage - the result is that the consumer pays more for less and less and less. Delta sucks, all US based airlines suck. It is not because the companies suck, it is because they are forced to hire a bunch of union idiots for way more than they are worth, and it takes an act of Congress to fire any of them.
@Cheapskate Brill: Right there in the summary, it says that at noon (so, presumably after 3-5 hours of "almost fixed" delays) he booked another flight -- that they then refused to let him board.
@sharkzfanz: For a guy that apparently has to travel as much as the OP, I'd imagine flying a day early is not feasible or even possible. I'd bet most of his trips are equally important.
Not the smartest advice.
@Cheapskate Brill: I'm not following the logic that he's "relatively well off" so therefore he should start eating a bunch of unnecessary costs.
He should do an anti-Delta commercial.
@amuro98: Thank you for saving me the trouble of saying this. 13 hours waiting for the plane to be fixed? Completely outrageous and not the OP's fault. He did everything he was supposed to do. Delta should have pulled the baggage off the plane and either put the passengers on other flights or HIRED A VAN and driven them to Atlanta (it would have been about 9 hours in the car, but at least they would have gotten to their destination).
I always have problems when flying Delta, especially with their "partners". If I buy a ticket from Delta, I DO NOT want to hear how the blame falls on one of your "partners". I will NEVER fly Delta again!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's been getting screwed by Delta (misery loves company, especially if it's company with a higher level of medallion status).
@Cheapskate Brill: Likely, if he had done that, they would have said HE had canceled his itinerary and therefore would not qualify for a refund. AirTran tried to do that to my parents once. It was blizzarding, every other airline had canceled its flights, but AirTran refused to, and when my parents asked to be rebooked for a flight the next day because it was blindingly obvious their flight was never going to take off, AirTran told them that that would be considered canceling their itinerary and therefore they would have to pay the rebooking fees. Took my dad two hours on the phone to get it straightened out, and we NEVER fly AirTran anymore.
As sucky as this story is I see at least a couple of silver linings
1 They were let off the plane rather then being forced to sit for 13 hours on the tarmac
2 I would much rather miss an engagement then plummet into the earth from 30 k feet due to a buggered fizgick
"And since our bags were on the plane (we had all already been seated, before we were asked to de-board) we couldn't even get our luggage off the plane and go home."
And that is why I only bring carry-on luggage when I fly. In those very rare instances that I cannot carry it on, I'll ship it separately.
@AlteredBeast:
href="#c14240489">CumaeanSibyl:
Airplane basketball would quite possibly be the best sport in the world.
@GMFish: I'll definitely 2nd that sentiment. The wife and I only bring carry on luggage. It has kept us from getting screwed SO many times. I won't even go into what a total fiasco flying is. Let's just say that if you only bring carry on you never have to worry about where your next clean pair of shorts or tooth brush is coming from.
@pupu: I don't know about Richmond but in Atlanta (which is Delta's headquarters) the workers are non-union. Maybe that explains their choice.
I was on an AA flight a while back leaving out of Chicago.
We sat on the plane for over 5 hours and where not allowed to leave.
The reason they gave us for the delay was "there was no fuel for the plane".
This made absolutly NO sense at all, since other AA planes where refueling and taking off. That was the last time we have flown.
I'd like to know why Delta denied him and his family boarding on the 5 p.m. flight to Atlanta that he purchased tickets for when it was apparent their first flight was never going to leave the airport.
Why, Delta, did you not let this guy get on another flight?
As for why he didn't book with another airline -- isn't Delta based out of Atlanta? My guess is that there were no other non-Delta flights to Atlanta from the Richmond airport.
It never ceases to amaze me how there is always at least one person in the comment section here who will find a way to blame a completely blameless victim. "Why didn't he sprout wings and fly to Atlanta himself with his family on his back?"
Sheesh.
@GMFish: Don't fly Delta/NWA to Detroit, then. Any bags that are gate-checked are sent to baggage claim. (speaking from experience)
(This assumes you can't fit all of your clothes into the shoebox-sized overhead baggage compartment.)
Ever since flying became a commodity and a business of price over performance for many we've seen the steady decline in service. Back when flying was more of an experience (AKA the hot pants days) people were treated less like cattle and better taken care of. At this point we're mostly up the creek for Domestic flights. These companies don't care about us, our experience, luggage or even that we wind up home. I've been stranded in many places by airlines and was unfortunate enough to have an Aloha air flight to get home from Hi right after they went out of business. Their web site said to call united for connection arrangements but United was worthless, even refusing to issue a protect on the aloha ticket so another carrier could reissue it. Calls to customer service got nowhere, executive emails got nowhere (not even a response) and I eventually made it home. These issues with stranded passengers are only going to get worse as the fleet of airplanes ages (when was the last time you were in a plane < 5 yrs old) and as the airlines cut costs, staff, increase fees, decrease service and further marginalize themselves into non-exsistance.
@Thanatos: The ironic thing about your statement is that UPS used to fly passengers on planes that were not used on the weekends. The service ended in 2001.
@pwillow1: Yup. So he'd have had to pile the family into a car and drive to DC or Baltimore, in fond hope of getting a flight, or wait for the flight that seemed likely to be fixed quite soon, since most of them are. He even was sensible enough to book new tickets.
He did everything right, but it didn't help.
@Tyler Waldman: Asking people to get off isn't a blanace issue, it's a weight problem. Balance can be fixed by moving luggage and people in the cabin.
Ever wonder why and how Delta some how keeps hogging all the gates at the worlds busiest airport? Little inside deals with the City of Atlanta, mmmmm maybe?
His minor near-celebrity status has nothing to do with it. Delta is an abomination. I took one flight with them, it was a mess from start to finish, and I'll never take another. I opted out of their frequent flyer program emails repeatedly, and they refused to stop emailing me. I tried an EECB begging them to never email me again, and all I got was a form email back offering me a phone number to call for further assistance. Horrible company all around.
@Cheapskate Brill: I used to live in Richmond and your hotel suggestion is not feasible for that location. The only things near there are an Arbys and a motel so scummy looking that I used to worry about catching scabies from just driving past it.
And yet people still wonder why private companies buy and operate their own aircraft.
Ah, technical delays.
I remember fondly several years ago that, while waiting for a flight to Texas at the Tucson international airport that the plane experienced a 'technical'.
I'm not exactly sure what it was, however, the attendant manning the counter assured us that it was a 'technical'. A 'maintenance' had been called, however, and soon the 'technical' would be fixed. She repeated this at least ten times in the next three hours.