Airline travel is aggravating. There?s no getting around that. Even without the airline issues, there are the TSA issues.
Still, it is generally the easiest and quickest way from point A to point B, but when things go wrong, they really go wrong.
I?m what airlines term a ?leisure? traveler, meaning I don?t fly as a matter of course for business. It?s usually for family vacations. When we go, I usually fly Southwest when I can. This is because when there?s a problem, they actually listen and attempt to solve it. Two years ago, a writers? conference I attend was moved from Nashville to Orlando at the last minute. Many of my fellow writers had trouble changing their plane reservation or were charged huge fees.
Southwest changed my flights without batting an eye or ringing up the cash register.
Mostly, I?ve found that the Southwest customer service people are actually empowered to solve whatever problem I have.
Still, I recognize that several flights a year is hardly a representative sample of how an airline behaves, so it?s possible they can be unsatisfactory. I just haven?t experienced it.
But there are hard facts backing up my anecdotal evidence. In this list of ?Most Complained About Airlines ? in Travel & Leisure magazine, Southwest was number 16?in 2011, ranking at the bottom. That means it?s the carrier with the least complaints. Delta was #6 in 2011, but it was ranked the worst in every single category in 2010. American, American Eagle Airlines, Continental, US Airways and United (most complained about) are ahead of Delta.
So, I feel backed-up in my preference for Southwest over the rest of the major airlines but my experience with Delta would likely have me picking even United Airlines over it simply out of annoyance and stubbornness with the way Delta handled my recent flight from the East Coast to the West Coast.
In February I flew out from the East Coast to Los Angeles. My flight was delayed taking off at first because the weather was supposed to be bad in the Midwest, then it wasn?t, then apparently extra fuel was taken on in case of bad weather, and then they decided it wasn?t needed because the weather would be fine and that now they were overweight because of baggage for the full flight, so they had to stay on the ground to bleed off some of the fuel.
I?ve no idea if this is standard but it seems to me calling it weather-related might be stretching it a bit, since they misjudged the weight in any case.
All this sitting on the ground delayed the flight so that it landed in Minneapolis-St. Paul about fifteen minutes before my connecting flight. Of course, the connecting flight was on the other side of the airport. And, naturally, the customer service people Delta said would be outside our gate waiting to help weren?t there. One rush through the airport later and I made it to the connecting flight after they closed their doors. The plane was still at the gate but I and several other passengers were told by the Delta representatives at that gate that not only was it too late to board our flight but we had to be on standby for the next connecting flight. They couldn?t guarantee us a seat.?
I understand if procedures say once the door is shut, they can?t add people.
I understand that it?s not fair to bump others off a connecting flight. However, Delta had a few solutions that they didn?t even try.
They could?ve helped me find a certain flight on another airline. Or they could have, when boarding the flight which had several standby passengers in the same situation as myself, asked for volunteers among the ticketed passengers to accept free flight vouchers to help those who missed their earlier flight.
They did neither of these things, though I?ve seen both done before by Southwest Airlines.
I was actually seated on the plane of the connecting flight when I was told a mistake had been made seating me and they took me off the plane right before takeoff. Yes, I was taken off the plane that I?d told had a seat for me because a mistake had been made.
Leaving me with no choice but to wait three hours for yet another connecting flight. No other options were available at that time.
To me, this was a problem created by Delta. The airlines are only required to put 30 minutes between connecting flights. If you have to get from one end of an airport to the other to make the flight, it?s a recipe for failure even if the flight is on time. And, in fact, I had to run to make the connecting flight back from the West Coast to the East Coast because there was such a short time window.
Additionally, when you book the flight, the connecting flight is booked automatically, so a savvy person can?t say ?Please put me on the connecting flight that?s 90 minutes after so I?ll be sure to make it.? That might work if you call customer service in advance, but given my experience with Delta customer service, I?m skeptical that it would.
Back to my missed flight, which required about six hours total between flights and made me extremely late for something important. I was steamed, to say the least. I did get a food voucher for $6 which almost made me laugh because everyone knows that will buy little at an airport. I got a chai latte and a small square of chocolate with my lunch money.
Delta also provided a $200 Delta voucher for my ?frustration.?
Still, I?m an adult of reasonably sound mind. I could take the frustration, even if I didn?t like it and even if I blamed them for not having any solutions to a problem they created.
But if this occurred when I?d been flying with my children, it could easily have become a ?situation? in no time flat.
One of my kids is special needs and can throw fits (which the general public doesn?t understand). There?s no way ever I could fly on an airline that would seat and then take people off planes and offer little compensation or do very little to soothe upset passengers. In fact, taking my child off that plane as I had to be taken off might have caused a serious disruption that brought security. Then you?d be reading about this in the national newspapers instead of this blog.
I just can?t take that chance with my kids. And it?s not just special needs kids either. Can you imagine tired toddlers? Parents always like to think children can be under control, but six-hour delays could try the patience of even the most well-behaved three-year-old.
To add what I feel was the final insult from Delta customer service, I?ve since discovered that the $200 voucher is essentially worthless.
Delta flights are more expensive than Southwest in general. I have some Delta miles that I could use. If I used the voucher to buy miles, I?d have enough for a free flight. But you can?t use the voucher to buy miles, only pay for air fares, so I was told.
So for the time and frustration and confusion and error on their part, I have a worthless piece of paper.
And they have a customer service script that makes talking to them infuriating. It?s like speaking to a wall when complaining. I wrote to them three times in detail, being polite and without insult but making certain they knew I was frustrated and felt they hadn?t done enough to resolve my problem and, indeed, basically had guaranteed this problem would happen to someone else in the future.
Each letter contained this phrase:
The gesture extended was?not meant to place a value on your experience; rather it was an attempt?to make amends for your disappointment with our service.
I don?t want to deal with a company that answers me with a stock phrase.
Mistakes happen. Good service companies empower employees to reasonably satisfy customers. I gave them several chances during the flight and four chances in communication with them and hit only a brick wall.
Not a company I want to do business with but, more importantly, not a company I can trust for family travel.
Corrina Lawson is a married mother of four, a full-time writer of genre fiction with romantic elements and has been a tomboy and a geek all her life. ?Source: http://www.geekmom.com/2012/03/why-im-not-flying-delta-again/
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