Delta denial

Q: My blind mother was traveling from Nashville to West Palm Beach on Delta Air Lines to attend her sister’s funeral. In Atlanta, Delta took her to a room and left her there. When she started crying and screaming for help, a passerby took her to the Delta counter and demanded someone help her. Then they put her on one of those people carriers, never telling the driver where she was supposed to go. After a while the driver came back to my mother and asked her where she was going, but by this time she had missed her flight and nearly missed her sisters funeral. The airline’s only response was “oops”. My mother wants the return of her money for the ticket and an apology from Delta. How do we get that?

– Coleen Higgins

A: Sounds like your mother had a terrible flight. You could have taken a few precautions to make sure that things didn’t end like this. Delta’s Web site offers a special section on traveling for the disabled. Remember that you have to give the airline at least two days notice and allow an hour for check-in when you need help.

It’s important to note what Delta can and can’t do as a matter of policy. Ground crew are available to assist passengers with disabilities in boarding, deplaning and in making flight connections, but it’s not equipped to provide full monitoring while waiting at the gate. Both you and your mother assumed that she’d be watched all the time, but the carrier’s policy suggests otherwise. In fact, its guidelines clearly state that if you need monitoring, “the customer should make arrangements for a traveling companion.”

I’m not going to second-guess you for sending a blind person who obviously would have benefited from a companion on an 845-mile flight alone. But I think much of the pain could have been avoided by making sure the airline not only knew about her medical condition but her mental condition as well.

I can’t blame your mother for breaking down in the waiting room and crying. Her sister had died. But did the airline know she was going to a funeral? If so, who at Delta knew: the reservations department, the ticket agents, the gate agents, or all of the above?

For the sake of your traumatized mother, I wish I could whip out the Americans With Disabilities Act and highlight a clause that shows Delta was negligent. I can’t. The ADA wasn’t written with airline passengers in mind, and the bits and pieces of the Code of Federal Regulations pertaining to passengers with special needs are insufficient to plug this leaky law.

Of course, in a civilized society one might expect the needs of a distressed, blind passenger to be taken into consideration. We are not a civilized society when it comes to air travel. Deregulation and good old fashioned greed have transformed aircraft cabins into flying buses and turned ticket agents into glorified cattle herders.

You can make all the phone calls you want before flying, you can read up on all the rules, but if you don’t show up at the airport prepared for the worst, you will almost certainly suffer. What do I mean by preparation? Brace yourself for a delay or an outright cancellation of your flight. You might even get bumped even though you have a seat. Your luggage may get lost. You’ll most likely be treated like a number and in some cases, mistreated. Make no assumptions about your trip, lower your expectations, and you won’t be disappointed.

As to your question about whether Delta should refund the ticket, I think the answer is pretty clear. From a legal point of view, it owes your mother nothing. It fulfilled the promise in its contract of carriage to transport her to West Palm Beach. Morally, it should not only refund the price of the ticket but write her an apology as well.

But then, the airline industry isn’t exactly known for its morals.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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