Delta Air Lines

Thanks to Chris Elliott’s quick reply today to my email asking advice on reinstating Delta SkyMiles. He gave me a link to his fabulous, fact-filled website in general and to his Delta information in particular.

Thanks to Fran Shapiro’s blog entry containing Richard Anderson’s email address, and Greg Ingram’s name.

Thanks to Delta…..within 2 hours of my email to Richard Anderson this morning, his assistant Greg Ingram called me…very, very impressive. Honestly I was amazed and nearly speechless at how quickly he responded. And he had the happy task of telling me the miles were already reinstated.

The rest of the story is that those miles were reinstated a few days after I faxed SkyMiles Customer Service Center a polite, factual letter August 20th…but they didn’t notify me so I’ve assumed these last 11 weeks that Delta was ignoring me, and got myself stirred up this morning to write the emails to Richard Anderson, Lee Macenczak and Daiquiri Gleaves.

I was a loyal Delta customer when I lived in Atlanta and flew on business frequently. Now that I live elsewhere and am retired I do not have the same opportunities. But I have a large network of friends and former business colleagues who will all hear again and again how Delta resolved my issue promptly and to my satisfaction. I will go out of my way to make certain everyone I can reach knows how happy I am with Delta. And how to find Elliott.org…..

Linda R,

It would be interesting to hear of the respoution of this snafu. THX GDZ

Want a pretty good idea of how Delta works? Here’s a story.

Last weekend, I was in Austin for South by Southwest. I had two friends coming into town. One of them was planning on flying from Philly to JFK (#5200), then to Austin. The other was flying direct from JFK to Austin (#5202).

Flight 5200 to JFK was delayed because, according to Delta, they “overfueled” the plane. I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Flight 5202 to Austin was delayed because, after taxiing to the runway, they realized they didn’t have enough fuel. The flight had to stop in Knoxville, TN for fuel, and was delayed over an hour.

My friend from Philly missed his connection and never made it to Austin. Delta gave him a full refund, but he was stranded in NYC and had to figure out how to get home on his own.

My other friend made it; but her return flight on Sunday afternoon was canceled. Delta told her that the best they could do was get her out TUESDAY morning. Plus, since the reason for cancellation was “weather,” they couldn’t put her on a codeshare or partner airline’s flight. She had to end up getting a one-way ticket on JetBlue, which worked fine.

Moreover, she bought her ticket using miles – and Delta wasn’t going to refund ANY of the miles, originally. I got on the phone and talked them into refunding half of the miles she used to book her flight.

Lesson learned: DO NOT FLY DELTA. Contrary to what I’ve read on this website, their customer service has not improved since emerging from bankruptcy; the whole “change is…” ad campaign is a farce. I’d rather have dependable, clean travel than a martini. But that’s just my opinion.

And just FYI, I’d recommend Continental Airlines. They have one of the youngest jet fleets, clean planes, and professional staff.

I stopped flying Delta about 4 yrs ago because of the incredibly bad customer service. Yesterday, i had a flight cancelled on NW and was forced to fly Delta from Raleigh/Durham to Gulfport/Biloxi. Wow!! Nothing has changed. The flight was late leaving, toilets did not work, flight attendant was rude and they lost my bag. To make matters worse, I was told my bag would be delivered by 10:00 a m the next morning, then by 3:00 pm, then within 12 hrs of 4:00 pm. When I called Delta I spoke to a “Baggage Floor Mgr” named Lona who informed me in no uncertain terms that Delta has 12 hrs to deliver bags and the 12 hrs does not begin to run until the bags are handed over to the courier service. So, according to Lona, Delta could keep the bags for 3 or 4 days if they so desired. Lona then hung up abruptly. No, the same old Delta is still there!!! I don’t think I have ever seen any business that is as customer hostile as Delta–and people know it. In my opinion, the best thing that could happen is for Delta to be taken over by another airline or file a Chapter 7 liquidation. The irony is that no one at Delta even cares. I fly maybe once every 3 weeks but it is always first class and many times international. Last yr alone Delta probably lost about 150k just off me. But, hey, they don’t care!!!!!

There are times in working for an airline that there are service failures. And I know how very frustrating things can become. I believe overseas agents should be off the phones soon. Also I field customer complaints all day and try to make things work. It is hard on people to make travel plans and then have something go wrong. I have talked to customers traveling on emergency travel, military or government, minors, weddings, funerals, court hearings, people who put their elderly parents or grandparents on flights that needed to be accompanied, business and vacation travelers just to name a few. And at times there are service failures that cannot be fixed. For that I am sorry. Delta is a great airline and I am proud to work for them. These are personal comments only.

Delta gave me voucher for a July 2007 flight to Toronto that I could not take because my passport failed to arrive. I asked the Delta representative twice how long the voucher was good for: “Tthe voucher is good until the 7th month of 2008.”

Tried to use the voucher May 6, 2008 to book a flight. The Delta representative stated that the voucher had expired, is not availible, end of discussion.

Basically stealing money. I’m done with Delta. Scott Huber

So What was the link to Delta Airlines to contact them and get my SkyMiles re-instated. (Exp Jan 2008), despite having partner (hotel, auto rental) activity the past year.

It’s a shame that Greg Ingram doesn’t seem to be employed by Delta anymore, as I’m receiving an error from the Delta postmaster.

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

Greg.Ingram@delta.com

Final-Recipient: rfc822;Greg.Ingram@delta.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.7.1
X-Display-Name: Ingram, Greg

I’d love to know who took his place!

Hey there!
I just wanted to thank you for posting this info. You are a life saver… I emailed the following:
I sent the following email to Delta. I tried normal channels first and they failed so I decided to email the CEO’s etc…. customer-care@delta.com, daiquiri.gleaves@delta.com,
lee.macenczak@delta.com, richard.anderson@delta.com . If you have an issue with Delta, email the dudes above.
Hello,

I am writing to inform you of a horrible experience flying Delta and their respective operators. I wish to preface this email by saying I fully prepared myself for numerous mistakes Delta and their operators make during the holidays. This, I am not upset about. However, what I am upset about is how it was handled by customer service.
My company has Delta as one of their clients and surely Delta would even hold us to higher standards than what I received from Delta this past week so it’s only fair I can expect the same in return.

Here is how it all started:

My co-worker Chris C. raves about how awesome Delta is and how well they treat her. So much so that she insist that I sign up for a miles card and come out and visit her in Cincy via Delta Air. I honored her request. The flight out was fine but the flight back was horrible. Here is my story:

6:05pm 12/22/08 EST I arrive @ Cincinnati airport to board Delta flt 6059 only to find it was canceled due to “Lack of staff” as the lady at the counter put it. NOT DUE TO WEATHER.
She instructs us to go to Customer Service between Gates 5-6 only to find out they are not there.
7:20pm 12/22/08 EST I finally get a nice woman on the phone with customer service, after 10mins of hold, she tells me I can leave that night into Atlanta and depart in the morning for Raleigh. I accept. She puts me on Delta flt 1713.
9:15pm 12/22/08 EST approx I arrive in Atlanta where I have to pay $119.00 for a room at the Westin.
5:50am 12/23/08 EST I wake up, get ready, and board a shuttle back to the airport. I am nervous at this point because you/Delta still has my luggage so I ask a nice lady at the airport who is employed by Delta, “I was rescheduled last night, they said my luggage would be on my flight this morning. Is that true?”. She responds with, “Sir, if they told you your luggage would be on that flight, then it will be”. I left with huge doubts.
9:10am 12/23/08 EST I arrive in Raleigh NC, I bypass baggage claim and go to to lost luggage and explain my situation and they tell me my luggage is in Knoxville TN(Read= I already know Delta messed up). The lady rolled her eyes in embarrasment and gave me a claim # of RDUDL27382.
5:21pm 12/24/08 EST I decide to check on my lost luggage online @ http://www.delta.com/baggage and am told it would be delivered today between 11:30PM(READ PM) and 11:30am(Read AM) today. However, your website says you only deliver up to 10pm to residential addresses. Does this make sense to you?
This is what I have a problem with:
I incurred $119 in hotel expenses due to something beyond my control(READ- LACK OF STAFF as stated by Delta).
I incurred another $40 to have my dog stay an extra night at the boarding establishment.

So in closing, see below for the correspondence with your customer service associate. While I found it quite clever, it never addressed the issue. I hope you can make everything right by my friend Chris and I.

Sincerely,

Joel Bazonski

PS: My baggage is still missing.

——————-
I will keep everyone posted.

January 3, 2009

Losing one’s luggage is always a hassle, but when the luggage gets lost when a family is traveling to a funeral, it’s particularly distressing.
My mother passed away on December 20th, 2008 (see enclosed obituary). Our family—Peter and Maureen (parents) and four children: Andrew, Grace, Claire and Sam—left for Rancho Mirage, California, the day after Christmas. We weren’t scheduled to arrive until late in the evening and had to be at the church by 10 a.m. Needless to say, when our luggage didn’t arrive at the Ontario airport, we quickly realized that there was no time to purchase anything. (Remember: we were traveling to attend the funeral of a beloved mother and grandmother; this was not a vacation). Fortunately, our hotel provided us with toiletries, but our casual clothing was wrinkled and malodorous from our travels. Several of us had on jeans and sneakers; others had spilled something on their shirt or pants. We certainly were not in proper attire or state of cleanliness to attend my mother’s funeral. All of the children played a part in the service, and had to walk to the altar in their grubby travel clothing. It certainly wasn’t the end of the world, but it was a tremendous inconvenience.
We still did not have our bags that afternoon, so I made a trip to Target to buy essential clothing. I also arranged for a few prescriptions to be transferred to a local CVS, and purchased toiletries and the like. The following day, three bags arrived at our hotel. Countless calls to the Delta baggage claim number yielded nothing: we were put on hold for an interminable amount of time or told to check the website. When we did check, only five of the six bags were listed as having been located; one bag was nowhere to be found and the claim number wasn’t even listed.
We’re now on day three of our trip. My daughter, Claire and I were muddling through family events, dinners, etc. with what clothing we had. (Both of our bags were filled with numerous Christmas items: jeans, sweaters, pajamas, lingerie. We were looking forward to wearing our new clothes, given the solemnity of the occasion.) We were increasingly frustrated with our inability to contact someone at Delta. We finally got in touch with a very kind woman at the Ontario Airport who said she’d do her best to locate our luggage. One more bag arrived that evening; we were now down to two missing suitcases.
It’s day four and we are leaving early the next morning. Claire and I were still wearing our Target purchases and recycling the other clothing we had. Claire was particularly upset because she received some great items as gifts and they were now lost, along with her orthodontic retainer and my dental mouth guard, two items that would take several weeks to replace.
We are now home and working to recall all the items we lost. Some are irreplaceable (the antique linens and photographs) while others are no longer available in stores. I realize that what we lost is just “stuff”, but it’s our “stuff” and we lost it at a time of grief and worry. The loss of my mother is far more significant to me than the loss of my clothing. But I will forever associate the following events: My mother died and Delta lost our luggage.

My case….I have not yet received response:

January 13, 2009

Mr. Richard H. Anderson
Chief Executive Officer
DELTA AIR LINES, INC.
1030 DELTA BOULEVARD
ATLANTA, GA 30320-6001

Dear Mr. Anderson,

On September 2008, I purchased two round-trip airline tickets to fly
with your company from Monterrey, Mexico to Madrid, Spain (via
Atlanta, GA) on December 26, 2008, and back, on January 11, 2009, for
me and my wife’s christmas vacations.

On Dec. 26, 2008, we arrived at Monterrey’s airport 3 hours in
advance, to avoid any problem with the check-in; and this is when the
nightmare began.

The plane had a 2 hour-delay, eventhough both Atlanta’s and
Monterrey’s weather conditions were ordinary. We left Monterrey at
approximately 15:50 hours, instead of the original time, which was
13:00 hours. This delay caused us to lose our connection to Madrid.
Just like us, many other Delta clients lost their connections in
Atlanta, all due to the obvious lack of organization of your company,
since we verified that other airlines were not having the same problem
(i.e. American Airlines).

Once we lost the plane, we unsuccesfully tried to contact a Delta
agent, both personally at the airport and through the 1-800 telephone
line. We lost almost 4 hours in a line of about 50 people, where there
was only one person attending all the affected customers (needless to
say that the line did not advance during all 4 hours). After finally
contacting an operator by phone (after hours of trying), she informed
us that we were booked for the next day flight, but that we had lost
the seats we were assigned since our purchase three months back.
Additionally, we had to spend US$70 dlls. for an hotel at Atlanta. The
next day, we had to stay another 5 hours in line in order to get our
new boarding passes. As we stood in line watching the mess, people
were losing their flights all over again. Thankfully, we took
precautions and arrived at the airport at 9:00 hours, eventhough our
plane left at 18:30 hours. After spending all day at the airport, we
finally flew to Madrid, but we lost a full day of our vacation, as
well as $120 Euros corresponding to the night we lost at Madrid’s
hotel.

During our stay in Europe, we flew with Vueling and Spanair (within
Europe), and, although the weather conditions were terrible, we had no
major delays of our flights. This made us realize the poor quality of
Delta’s service.

On January 11, 2009, at the Barajas airport in Madrid,we had to stand
in line, all over again, for up to one and a half hours to check-in
for our Delta flight back home. Looking around other stands at
Barajas, we clearly noticed that no other airline had the same
organization problem as Delta. Once in Atlanta, our plane to Monterrey
- again – was delayed for two hours and a half, and I must add that
there was not a cloud in the sky in Atlanta. In the meantime, no one
was able to inform us about the cause of the delay. We finally arrived
home at 23:00 hours, instead of the promised 21:00 hours. The balance
of our trip was almost 29 hours lost either waiting in line or at a
terminal, due to unnecessary delays, and more than $250 dollars spent
all due to your company’s fault, and nobody even offered an apology,
much less an offer to reimburse the losses and damages it caused.

I am sorry to inform you that our instant reaction when our friends
and family ask us about our trip is: “NEVER fly with Delta”. We made
this mistake once, but surely will not make it again. We feel cheated
and impotent. Eventhough we have considered legal action, for now, our
only defense is to tell as many people as we can: “NEVER fly with
Delta”. As CEO, I thought maybe you should know the feeling of a
regular client of Delta, since surely you will never have these
problems.

Sincerely,

Marcelo Vallecillo

I just wanted to thank everyone for their helpful posts. After a horrible experience at the Delta counter at Bradley International in Hartford that caused us to miss our flight the day before Christmas Eve due to an understaffed counter and one extremely rude employee, we tried several things including contacting customer service and the Better Business Bureau. After that got us nowhere I did an internet search and stumbled across this website and your helpful posts. We wrote a short and to the point letter and emailed it to the CEO, copying all executives that were suggested in the comments. We did this this morning and this afternoon Diane Russell called my husband and sent us email vouchers good for $400 each, which coveres the cost our our roundtrip flight. I can only hope that they will run the Delta counter at BDL more smoothly when we use the vouchers.

I had hopes, when I first read a good comment about Greg Ingram in your blog, that I might be able to contact an individual who actually had Mr. Anderson’s attention. Upon scrolling down the pages, however, I learned that he apparently no longer fills this capacity. Do you know the email of a currently reliable contact that high up?
Alan

I received a form letter reply to my e-mail below. I will be following up with the info above. Thanks!

I am writing in regard to my travel on Delta airlines on 4-3-09. There
are several issues that I
need resolved.
1. We were scheduled to depart from Pittsburgh on the 6am flight to JFK.
This flight was delayed
due to crew scheduling errors. The gate attendant, who was working from
another gate and
coming over to ours to update us, announced on the loud speaker that the
plane was delayed
because we were waiting for the fight attendants to arrive. He then went
on the explain that he
was unable to get in touch with them on their cell phones and went as
far as to call their hotel
rooms to try to “wake them up”.
2. At this time (currently 5 minutes past take off time) I approached
the gate agent and told him
that we had a tight connection and asked if I could rebook on a later
flight so I could be sure I
would not miss it. The gate agent then told me to “sit down” that he was
working on getting
someone to crew the plane and we were only 5 minutes late and all
connections would be fine. I
said I did not think ours would be okay and he told me that I was being
ridiculous and not to freak
out so soon.
3. The flight crew showed up and we departed to arrive over 45 minutes
late. My connection to
Miami had already departed so I immediately went to the customer service
desk to rebook. I saw
that there was a flight around 10:20am that I would easily be able to
make. I asked the customer
service rep if we could get on that flight and he said it was completely
booked and the standby
line was too long. He then told me that the earliest I could possibly
get to Miami was 11:30 pm
that night through a connection in Atlanta. That was a full 12 hours
later than originally
scheduled. I did not know at the time but there were several other
options available that were
available that were not offered, including a direct flight to Miami.
4. I checked the customer service desk every 2 hours as they suggested
and was never offered
another flight.
5. At this point the weather in the airport became foggy and flights
were being delayed. The
flight we were supposed to be on to Atlanta was delayed and I was sure
we would miss our
connection. I attempted to go to our gate to speak with an agent but no
one was anywhere to be
seen.
6. I then traveled to the gate 11 customer service counter and witnessed
the worst example of
customer service I have ever seen. The woman behind the counter looked
at the line and yelled at
one of the passengers that she would not help her here and she had to go
to the gate as she had
told her before. The customer in line tried to explain that she had
gone to the gate and they sent
her back to customer service. The agent did not believe this and there
was a large confrontation
that included the gate agent yelling into the face of this woman.
7. It was finally my turn in line and the woman asked us to tell her
what was happening. In the
middle of my explanation 2 Delta flight attendants walked up and the
agent walked away from me
to talk to them in the middle of our conversation. She then began
yelling at another customer. I
realized this was going nowhere and the flight I wanted to catch was
leaving in 30 minutes so I
left and decided to call customer service instead.
8. I spoke to an employee on the customer service line who then told me
the Atlanta flight was
delayed even longer and there was no way I would make the connection and
there was no other
flight that night. I could be booked on a flight the next morning but
that was all he could do.
After I explained the entire ordeal and the point that we were delayed
due to circumstances that
were in Deltas control he offered me $100 vouchers. Unfortunately
compensation does not even
come close to covering the expense of the hotel and the loss of
vacation. He eventually found 2
seats that had opened up on the direct flight that was to leave around
6:30pm. We were booked
on that flight and went on our way.
9. After arriving at the gate we were then informed that the flight had
been delayed and would
be taking off closer to 10 pm. We were just happy to get out and took a
seat to wait.
10. The flight was then cancelled. We went to customer service once
again to try to rectify the
situation. After waiting 45 minutes we approached agent Quigly and once
again explained the
situation. As he was going through the system he said he could not
confirm what happened in
Pittsburgh because it was not put into the system yet. Of coarse it is
to Delta’s advantage that the
information not be filed. He then went over the record of what we had
been booked on all day and
saw that there were several chances for us to be on earlier flights that
had been overlooked.
11. Because of the weather delays and all the customers trying to get to
Florida he said there was
no way he could get us there before Sunday late afternoon and since we
were flying back Monday
it did not make sense. I was completely shocked that because of a Delta
error we would not be
able to get to Florida within 2 days! After trying every possible
solution we asked to speak to a
supervisor and were told one would be down in a moment to speak with us.
12. We waited approximately 45 minutes without anyone coming to speak
to us. At that point I
pulled aside a woman who looked like she was in charge. She was not a
supervisor but after I
explained our situation she found a supervisor for us to speak to.
13. We were told to speak to Supervisor Norman. We approached him and
began telling him our
situation when he stopped us and told us we had already talked to a
supervisor and he was not
going to be able to help us because we already spoke to someone. We
explained over and over
that we had not and finally convinced him that though we were waiting
for 45 minutes to speak to
someone no one ever came down. He then decided he would try to help us.
14. Again he poured over the list of the changes we had gone through
that day and kept asking
us questions like “why were you given a voucher” and “why is there no
record of what happened in
Pittsburgh”. He then told us that because it was weather related he
could not do anything. We
explained that our specific situation was not weather related. I think
he finally got the ridiculous
situation at that point. He told us he just had to be sure because it
would require a lot of
paperwork for him at the end of the night! Norman then went on the hunt
to find us a flight.
Eventually he was able to book us on a 8:15 flight the next day (the
exact flight we should have
been on 24 hours earlier). By this time it was very late and Norman
asked what we were going to
be doing that night. He said because of the weather they did not have
any rooms to offer us but
that he would keep trying and let us know.
15. Norman found us and told us he had a room for us at the Hampton Inn
JFK. He gave us the
room voucher and told us where to go to catch the hotel shuttle. We
boarded the train to the
shuttle and were happy that we would get some sleep so the second day of
our vacation would not
be ruined. Upon arriving at the shuttles we called the hotel to request
they pick us up. They told
us we did not have a room, Delta had used all their rooms and they kept
sending people there that
were being turned away. I asked if we could book a room to pay for it
ourselves but he said they
were totally booked. We called each hotel in the area with the same
result. Defeated we headed
back to the airport.
16. By this time the airport was closed and we were unable to get in
anywhere but baggage claim.
We went to the office and explained what had happened and asked if there
was anyway we could
speak with Norman or anyone who could help resolve the situation. The
Delta employees at
baggage said they could not help us and we would have to wait for the
ticket counters to open. We
realized we would be stuck in baggage until 4:30 am when the counters
opened and decided we
would try to sleep there. We asked for any kind of blanket or pillow and
were told they were
unable to help us because they only dealt with baggage. The doors in
baggage claim were
partially open the entire night causing it to be freezing in the room.
At 4:30 we left to go upstairs
and wait for our flight.

As you can see in the 16 points above we encountered horrible service
every step of the way. From
the gate attendant in Pittsburgh who refused to help us to the
supervisor in JFK who did not want
to speak to us so he could avoid paperwork. These gross examples of
incompetence caused us to
miss a full day of our trip and left us exhausted for the the remaining
days. We wish we could
have been more concise in this letter but we feel that all of these
points needed to be addressed.
We will be awaiting your reply letting me know your plans to resolve
these situations.

December 19th and 21st, 2008, I flew from Orlando, Fl. to Cincinnati, Oh for a connection flight to Scranton, Pa. Since I am a member of Ax Delta Sky Miles, I paid part of the trip with Ax and 25,000 ff miles. Since the flights to Scranton, Wilkes Barre were cancelled on both days due to inclement weather, I had to fly back to Orlando both times. I finally cancelled the flight as I did not want to
repeat the same scenario. I was told by the agent in Cincinnati, my miles would be reinstated. I started calling on January 12, and spoke to various supervisors, agents, sent e-mails, wrote to VP of the Sky Miles Department still to no avail.
One agent told me since I had flown from Orlando to Cincinnati, I would only get half my miles reinstated. I finally wrote to Chrisopher Elliott and sent e-mails to the addresses he gave me. It is now May 19th. Let’s see if anyone answers as it does not seem customer serivice is non existant with Delta.