The Delta Airlines Customer Experience

Here’s my Delta Airlines experience for this evening:

1) curbside check-in, my primary bag is 3 pounds over the 50 lb. limit, $80 to check it, my second bag is $25, both are full so I cannot reallocate the weight to save the $80 although the total weight of 70 lbs is significantly less than the 100 lbs they allow among two checked bags, then there’s a $3/bag fee to use curbside check-in and the line inside which I checked before was about 300 people deep so that’s worth it I guess… $111 dollars later my bags are checked for the flight I’ve already paid for

2) then the guy hands me my boarding pass and it says “Seat Request” which of course means that I don’t yet have a seat on the plane, which I booked and paid for three weeks ago.

3) as I enter the A terminal at Boston Logan after breezing through security in about 1 minute flat I hear the announcement “folks, the digital screens in this terminal are not correct right now because they’re having trouble accepting all of the delays we’re putting in right now”

4) when I arrive at my gate to request my seat there is a line of 10 people already waiting on the gate agent, the Delta computer system is down so the woman cannot even board the plane previous to mine at the gate

5) a women walks up and asks if the agent can just tell her what gate is correct for her flight since the boards aren’t correct at the moment, the gate agent snaps back “no I cannot” to which I think she means because the computer system is down, then she continues after a pause “… because I don’t know your information.” The woman asks “what information do you need from me?” to which the agent responds “M’am, I cannot help you because these other people are first.” Those other people of course cannot be helped because her computer system is down.

6) I eventually give up and walk about 1/4 mile to some other Delta gates where I’m told that they cannot help me until after they finish boarding their current flight, I walk to the other side to another gate and the agent tells me that she cannot help me because I must get my ticket issued at the specific gate I will be departing from (the gate where the line of 10 has now grown to about 50), so here I sit as the line continues to grow and grow.

7) update: it was just announced that our airplane isn’t here yet (we’re 30 minutes before departure time now)… then it was clarified that the plane isn’t here because it hasn’t even left another airport. The city name they stated sure sounded a lot like Bangalore but I asked around and apparently it’s somewhere in Maine. The delays are weather related.

In summary, so far today Delta has charged me an additional 60% for my flight, oversold it, and then been very unfriendly and unhelpful. And people wonder why Southwest is kicking their butt?