Delta Airlines Has Issues Worst Flying Experience of My Life

[htdefiant 0]

This will be a long post so get ready

 

The Trip There

It is 6:15 a.m. in Richmond, Virginia, United States of America. My alarm rings, you know, one of those obnoxious ones. I am very excited, because I am on my way to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, United States of America, to play 45 holes of golf on Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend. I arrive at the airport at 7:00 in the morning for a 8:00 plane. Right on time, yes! We curbside check, and get to the gate at 7:15. A human come on the intercom (not one of those computer voices) and says:

 

Welcome to Flight xxx with direct service to Fort Lauderdale. We will board this plane by zones. There are 4 zones on this Embraer aircraft. We will board numerically. We will now board all zones at this time.

That did not make much sense. Anyway, I get on the plane at 7:30 a.m. I say to my father:

 

Maybe we'll leave early! That'd be nice!

The kiss of death .

 

At 7:40, the flight attendent says:

 

Welcome aboard flight xxx with service to Fort Lauderdale. We are looking for a volunteer with flexible travel plans to fly out later. We are offering 400 "delta dollars'

No one moves. After 10 minutes, the offer is gradually upped to 1000 "delta dollars". They find their voluenteer and that's that. Right?

 

Of course not

 

At 7:50, the gate agent (the same idiot who boarded all the zones at the same time) says (every word exactly):

Yeah, I just took 14 bags off the plane because of a weight imbalance. Bye now.

I say to Dad:

 

The next flight to Florida is not till 6 p.m. tonight...is it even worth it if we only get one day of golf?

My dad an I agree we are to hope for the best. Then the flight attendent announces that some smaller bags that can fit overhead and are in the cargo bay will be moved up. I see my small clothing bag come on in the hands of that idiot gate agent. But my dad's small bag does not come up so I figure they took off all they needed. Someone in the front row shouts (to gate agent):

 

We want your name! We want to report your great service to Delta!

I cheer him on

 

Then, the flight attendent, a very nice woman by the way, says that Delta knows that many of the passengers are on crusies and that their bags have not been taken off. I look at my dad, sure that our bags were taken off because most of the passengers were cruise passengers, and out golf bags were heavy.

 

So, pessimisticly, we take off and have a good filght.

 

[hr=noshade]

We land in Ft. Lauderdale and arrive in the baggage claim. The first two bags that come out are our two golf bags! YAY! But how stupid is that?!?! Anyway, ironicly, the bag left in Richmond is my dad's tiny travel bag. Sorry, but WHAT THE H***? I simply do not understand. Anyway, my dad's bag arrives at our lodging at 6 pm that night.

 

Oh yeah, remember all those cruise people? Half their bags were left in Richmond and they were forced to miss their boats!

[/hr]

 

Our Golf

[hr=noshade]

We had a great time, I, shooting 93, 91, 45 (9 holes) which is pretty good for me, as I like to play bogey golf at this young point in my career. [/hr]

 

 

The Trip Back

I know you are thinking ENOUGH ALREADY, but wait there's more!

 

We are on a connecting flight returning. We are to go from West Palm Beach (30 minutes from Ft. Lauderdale) to Atlanta to Richmond. I hate the Atlanta Airport. Anyway, Out flight is scheduled to leave West Palm at 6:15 p.m. We arrive at the gate at 5:15. The flight is delayed to 7:30. At this point, we are not going to make our connection in Atlanta. I ask dad weather we should just stay in Florida but he points out that we will have more options in Atlanta. I agree, and the plane is suddenly changed to a 7:05 departure time. We board, but don't really get in the air until 7:30. I watch "Walk the Line" on the plane, and try to forget the situation I am in.

 

We land, it is 9:25, our connection is at 9:30, it says closed. Great. We go to the ticketing and rebooking counter. There are fights going on, and police had to intervene in one colose to us. Wow. Anyway, my dad goes up to the agent and says the truth (really, not kidding):

 

Look, I know you don't know me from a hole in the wall bu I have to get back to Richmond by tommorow for heart sugery. I am looking to get on one of the following flights:

AirTran to Newport News, Virginia

Delta to Dulles, Wasington D.C.

Delta to Lynchbugh

The agent explains that the the AirTran and Dulles flights have already left, but she can get us in the Lynchburg flight that leaves in 5 minutes!.

 

My dad, not the fastest of all men, takes all my posessions, and I, getting the queue, begin the 1/4 mile sprint from A termamial to D terminal. I catch the tram, take it to C, where the doors won't close. I run to gate D 26 (the best part was the run up the 3 story elevator). I run up and say "Is this the flight to Lynchburg"? The gate agent says:

Are you (my last name, witheld for privacy)? I say yes, and my dad come up about 30 seconds later. To make a Starbucks snack and phone calls stories shorter, I will say that when we arrived at D 26 at 9:45, we did not take off until 11:20. We got to Lynchburg at 12:30 a.m. and drove to Richmond and arrived at 2:30 a.m.

 

Moral of the story: DO NOT FLY DELTA!

[MaineFishing45 0]

Well I have had great service with Delta and AirTran... the only thing was I choosen for a "Random Search" () And the funny thing about random searches are that if you are Iraq or something its no longer a random search.... which is racists and really annoying and mocks the U.S. But anyways security these days....

Edited March 1, 2006 by MaineFishing45 (see edit history)

[shigajet 0]

Now THAT was an interesting story of sorts. I never took Delta myself, though....mainly because my dad was a pilot and flew us to our destination on a single engine aircraft (Piper or Cessna). That, and I've heard some horror stories about Delta. (Has anyone heard about what DELTA stands for...Don't Ever Leave The Airport)?

[Plenoptic 0]

Well I used to fly Delta but now I fly SouthWest. I can't remember any bad services probably because I was either 5 and sleeping or not paying attention, or maybe like 8 or something. I do know they do tend to be late a lot. I feel bad for you. I hope they gave you an extra bag of peanuts I would reccomend SouthWest they are a pretty good company. I also live on the east coast, in Florida actually. I have taken them in and out of West Palm a couple times cause I used to live there.

[htdefiant 0]

Hopefully, SouthWest will come to Richmond some time soon...JetBlue is coming in March.

[tuddy 0]

Awww, that was the most boringest crapest story i have ever heard. lol ;) Joking.So you mean, no wings falling off before you leave the ground?, or someone having a 'flight attack' mid flight and going crazy? Tip: Dont ever make yourself an enermy to someone who works for the company, they all talk. Like loosing your bags unexpectably?

[FLaKes 0]

Wow, that Delta = Dont ever leave the airport was really funny, Lol. I remember when I was like 6 I would really like delta, especially because they had some sort of happy meal, and the lion was cool.

[iwuvcookies 0]

I heard something on the news that Delta and some other company is going to file for bankruptcy. With a service that scary I wonder do their airplanes fly up to par with their reputation?

[MaineFishing45 0]

I remember when I was like 6 I would really like delta, especially because they had some sort of happy meal, and the lion was cool.

That cracked me up... I have not had any bad experiences with them (stated above) but what I don't get is that the airline companys never admit what really happens with security, money, funds, and that stuff. Because people will lose there business and stuff, but I mean if they improve there service, and improve the plains, then people will come back. Right?

[arnz 0]

I may only visit America every once in a while, but when I'm up there, domestically its either SouthWest or United, from my short experience on United, they werent too bad (I've heard of many ppl having bad experiences with United.. but again it happens on all the legacy airlines in the USA). It really depends on what crew you may get on the flight.Air Canada aint a bad carrier either, had last flown them from LAX to YYZ in 1998. Just a pity they dont fly wide-bodies (ie 767) on LAX-YYZ flights anymore.

[Sean Foster 0]

I don't mean to complain, but in my experience, most passengers seem to "check" their common sense with their luggage. I was a ramp agent years ago for SkyWest Airlines and I've seen some pretty funny things. For example, there was only one airplane on the entire ramp in FAT (Fresno, CA) at the time and we began to board passengers. One passenger asked me, "is that my airplane?" I thought to myself, "no lady . . . your plane is the invisible one just to the North of that one!"

 

SkyWest Airlines has contracts with United Airlines and Delta Airlines to operate as United Express and Delta Connection respectively. Many of the planes are painted in United or Delta colors/schemes, but some are actually painted in the SkyWest theme. These aircraft are said to be "cross-utilized", that is, they can be used for both Delta Connection and United Express flights. Well, we were boarding one of these cross-utilized aircraft for a United Express flight to Los Angeles, and a female passenger refused to board the aircraft because it said "SkyWest Airlines" on the side. She was adamant about the fact that she did not buy tickets to fly on SkyWest, and that her tickets were to fly on United Express.

 

After countless attempts to explain the situation to the passenger, the gate agent finally gave up. Finally, the aircraft door closed and the aircrew started the #2 engine. When they started the #1 engine, the passenger demanded that she be allowed to board the plane. The gate agent politely refused, explaining that the flight could not be held, and tried to explain to the passenger that she had refused to board when called previously. At this point, the passenger became loud and very rude. She's lucky she was not denied boarding for the rest of the day. The gate agent would have been well within her right to do so, but if given the chance to fly on SkyWest Airlines, I think you'll find that they have exceptional service!

 

Yep, I really miss those days as a ramp agent. I later became an aircraft mechanic for SkyWest and, thus, never experienced these ridiculous situations again. Well, sort of. I once had a pilot write up some logo lights (shine on the tail to display the company logo) that were inoperative. The signoff was, quite literally, "logo lights not installed on this aircraft." On a different occasion, a pilot called me over and said that he was performing a fire sensing system check and that he was not getting the correct indications. I asked him to perform the check again, and when he was all through, I showed him the correct switch to flip to perform the check! Of course it checked good.

[iGuest 3]

smarter than you thinkDelta Airlines Has IssuesThankyou for your statement. You are correct that it doesnt matter about what airline it is. It matters what type of employees that are helping you. Oh and to the first guy who started all of this saying that gate agents are idiots makes you a complete moron if you ever flew much before because they work their buts off and have to 10,000 things at the same time. So I guess any old idiot couldnt do that could they?