I am not a commercial blogger or professional writer. I am a plain passenger. This little story was recorded on August 07, 2010 just to document my most recent experience with Delta Airlines, their reservations and their customer service. I believe it will sound very familiar for many.

The story of my Delta ticket

(Or the story of Delta machine, mixed with real experience and eternal questions)

The overture

I leave in Boston, and my mother came to visit me from Moscow. On August 05, 2010 she was supposed to fly back to Russia. As always, I booked her tickets on Orbitz. Usual schedule, familiar flights: Boston-Amsterdam-Moscow. Used to be KLM, now Delta.

However, in late July 2010 the situation in Moscow starts to deteriorate rapidly. Due to abnormally-hot summer (record temperatures in the entire history), Moscow and its surroundings start to burn. Literally. The city is encircled by forest wildfires, filled with dense CO smoke (4-10 times above the permissible limits), and the entire Moscow region declares the state of emergency. There are human victims, and international aid. Every single news agency reports the story: CNN, Spiegel, BBC, Associated Press, Reuters… The images are getting more and more troubling:

My mother is 66 years old and naturally enough, I am not looking into sending her back in the midst of all this. I decide to reschedule her return by one week, maybe ten days – whatever is possible, until the fires and smoke get under control.

I start calling.

Orbitz.com

The first place I call to arrange my Delta ticket rescheduling is Orbitz – I bought it there. The Orbitz guy locates my record instantaneously, but finds out that my ticket cannot be rescheduled according to some airline restrictions. Not even for a fee. Never had this before, but OK, I understand, Orbitz can’t do anything about Delta. But at least the Orbitz rep is compassionate, he listens to me, he gives me the next number to call. Delta 1-800-241-4141.

Delta Airlines: 1-800-241-4141

By now, I know these digits by heart – over the past few days, I’ve dialed them countless times. But back then, I started with the very first call

Call one

Dialing the number. Passing through the misplaced offers to answer customer review (why??? – I have not even reached any service yet!!!), I am getting to a live Delta person.

She takes my record locator, and checks the flights for the next week. Good news: seats are available, “When would you like to fly?”. I answer. She tries to rebook, but – surprise! – “it does not work”.

“Sorry, I do not know why, but the system does not let me rebook your flight. But I have someone who can help. Let me connect you to them.”

Question: Why Orbitz guy knows more about my ticket restrictions than Delta reservation desk?

Question: Why Delta agents start rebooking before checking the tickets?

She reconnects me to another Delta agent. I have to repeat the entire story again: wildfires, rescheduling, my record locator number.

Question: Do Delta agents talk to each other? Why do I have to repeat it over and over again?

The second agent checks my ticket again. “Sorry, but your ticket type cannot be rescheduled. Either fly it, or buy a new one”.

I keep explaining the situation, I do not mind paying rescheduling fee, but she does not listen (does not care).

She quickly goes into the “Sorry, but I cannot help you” state – the most stable state of virtually any Delta employee, attainable within the first 2-3 minutes of conversation.

Useless. I hang up.

Call two

Maybe, I reached a wrong person? I remember that many years ago one usually had to call Delta several times, before hitting the agent who knows. The magic guru, one out of 10000. So I take a deep breath to recover, and dial 1-800-241-4141 again. When it starts with its customer review, I say “Crap”, and the machine skips to the next step. Magic word with Delta!

I get to a live person. She picks up, and laughs – probably, working in Delta call centers entails large amounts of joy. I start talking, which interrupts her laughing. She asks for my record locator. I dictate it. Sorry, she did not get it right, there is still laughing in the background. I dictate it again, spelling every letter: C-Charlie… D- David… P-Peter…

By the time I get to the end, my connection suddenly drops. Apparently, she laughed so hard that hit her “Disconnect” button. See yaa, dear your-call-is-very-important-to-us Delta customer!

Call three

I take another break, and dial 1-800-241-4141. Again. Magic “Crap” word saves me a minute, and eventually I reach a human part of the Delta machine. I tell her my ticket story. She starts checking – “could you wait for a minute, please?”

OK, I wait for some five-ten minutes.

“Thank you for your patience; I am still checking the flights. Please remain on the line”.

OK, I remain.

“I am sorry, but my computer is not responding. I do not know what is wrong with it. Please remain on the line” – and she connects me to another one – Jasmine.

Question: How old is an average Delta computer?

Question: Does it exist?

Question: Does it work?

Needless to say, I have to repeat everything again, now for Jasmine. Needless to say, Jasmine goes onto another “please remain on the line” vacation. Eventually she comes back:

- OK, I checked you ticket, but unfortunately it cannot be rescheduled

- But do you realize that we have an exceptional situation, the city is covered by toxic smoke?

- Unfortunately it cannot be rescheduled

- State of emergency?

- Unfortunately it cannot be rescheduled

- Elderly woman…?

- Unfortunately it cannot be rescheduled

- Endangering…?

- Unfortunately it cannot be rescheduled

Obviously, we reach the typical crappy customer service dead-end: sweetened apologetic rephrasing of “I do not care”.

So I try the next level “Can I talk to your manager?”

Jasmine puts me on hold again, and after some time, I hear Carol the manager. I repeat the whole story again. Carol puts me on hold. She returns with the following news:

- I checked for any updates, but there is no exceptions for Moscow

- Do you read the news???

- Sorry, nothing I can do, I checked for any updates, but there is no exceptions for Moscow

- So what it takes for Delta to raise an exception?

- There is no exceptions now

- Listen (I am trying to be as calm as I can), listen, we have two choices: I pay the fee to reschedule my flight and stay with Delta, or I throw this useless ticket away, and buy a new one – but with another airline, for sure. What is the best for Delta?

- Sorry, nothing I can do, there is no exceptions for Moscow

- Can I talk to your supervisor?

- Sorry, I am the reservation supervisor, and my decisions are final.

- Then I am sorry to hear that Delta has degraded to this point.

I hang up. I cannot take this anymore.

Question: What disaster does it take for Delta to raise an exception?

Question: Why do I need a natural disaster of utmost scale to reschedule my flight?

Question: How long an average Delta agent (manager, top manager) would last in toxic fire smoke?

Question: Why urgent calls cannot be elevated to people capable of decision-making? If everything is decided by some “exception” checkbox in the system, who needs supervisors anyway?

Finally, I remember the times when rescheduling was free. OK, you figured out that the outstanding services of jasmines and carols have to be paid, and came up with a sweet fee, quarter of my ticket cost. But I am still curious:

Question: What one has to pay for rescheduling, and what it has to have insurmountable restrictions to begin with?

Exhausted? - Try Delta online!

I make several more calls, but to no avail. Isn’t it getting boring, my dear reader? It was getting nerve-breaking to me for sure! I got a strong impression of talking to robots: you know, they are kind of human, but only to read their computer scripts in a human voice. Apart from this, there was nothing else about 1-800-241-4141 which I would associate with human – intelligence, compassion, knowledge. NOTHING.

So I go online, find there Delta customer service, and send them the following letter:

The city of Moscow (Russia) is surrounded by wildfires and covered by smoke. I call Delta to reschedule a flight for my mother, a 66-year-old woman, supposed to fly from Boston to Moscow, in the midst of all this burning-smoking mess. I call Delta 4 times, and what do I get in return???
“Your ticket cannot be rescheduled”! Even for a fee!
I have been using Delta for 15 years, but now I am truly fed up. I have not seen a single airline, a single office, a single company which would care so little about its customers. You would rather send an elderly woman into a wildfire, than take a little effort to grasp the current situation, and to take it into account.
Am I exaggerating? My mother is supposed to fly on August 5; and here is today’s news, one day before her flight:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gi262zeoo1FAu0Zln6cAG2TZOxGw

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100804/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_fires

So I am challenging Delta: if you have a grain of common sense left, reply to my email, XXX@XXX.com and let me reschedule my mother's flight, record locator 4CDPQH. If you cannot do it, do not reply - I do not need another piece of the customer support script with "Sorry we have no exceptions issued".

I send the same letter to KLM’s customer service as well. Note the record locator number in my message.

Several hours later, Delta replies with its needless “automatic message” crap –this “we care about you” automatic garbage email, that does not deserve to be on this page. Time is running out!

Day after, Delta emails:

Dear Mr. XXX

Thank you for contacting us.
From the information you provided, we are unable to locate your mother's reservation. Your assistance would be appreciated in providing additional information which would allow us to process your request.
Please provide her ticket number. If she is traveling on Delta her ticket number should begin with 006 (or Air France 057, KLM 074) and is located in the upper, center portion of your electronic ticket receipt.
If you are not able to verify her ticket number please provide us with the Delta flight numbers, dates of travel, and her last name.
We appreciate your business and trust your future flights will be enjoyable. We hope you will continue to make Delta your airline of choice.

Sincerely,
Ronnie P.
Online Customer Support Desk
http://www.delta.com

You got to be joking, Ronnie P. from Delta!!! You did not even bother to read my email, with Delta record locator stuck in it! Same record locator, which I was using with your infamous 1-800-241-4141 “robo-service” - yet even they were able to locate the flight without a hitch!

I send another email to Ronnie, with all possible numbers included, and with my phone number on top, asking to call.

Ronnie never replied.

KLM never replied either. I interpret their silence as reading my letter completely, up to the very last sentence. Well, dear KLM, at least you had the courage to recognize how useless you are. Used to be a good airline. Good bye.

Last defense

What the heck, I get ready to buy a new ticket for my mom – not with Delta, God forbid! Swiss, a few others – I know them, I try to use them more, as they serve substantially better! But for a day, the smoke level in Moscow drops down and my mom (tired of uncertainty) insists on flying.

We arrive at the airport. I decide to attempt the last chance, just to see if Delta clerks at the airport are anyhow different from the 1-800-241-4141 cyborgs.

At the Delta ticketing counter, I ask Delta agent to check whether I can reschedule my mom’s ticket for a later date. I am ready to pay a fee, no problem.

She tells me that she cannot do it herself -

Question: Why Delta agents cannot do anything?

- and picks up the phone. Hooray, she calls 1-800-241-4141 – what else? She talks for a few minutes, smiling. Then she delivers the verdict:

“We cannot change your ticket because it was booked though a travel agency”

What?? What about all my 1-800-241-4141 calls??? What about my Orbitz call??? If anyone from Delta higher management reads my story to this point, I would like to ask you, my dearest “men in charge”:

Question: Why Delta agents do not know anything, and come up with different nonsense every time?

My dearest Delta managers, in case you are puzzled by this question, here’s a simplified version:

Question: Why Delta agents cannot change Delta tickets?

If Delta cannot reissue its own tickets, who can? In fact, I was changing Delta tickets (bought on Orbitz and elsewhere) with Delta many times in the past! Apparently, something’s got really optimized in the Delta workflow! Good job, my lovely Delta managers, keep optimizing!!

Flying

OK, my mom has her boarding pass issued. Was not easy as well - we have to convince Delta agents that my mom’s passport did not expire, because they confuse dates with months (Jesus Christ!), but that’s OK, this is minor fragment of the total ignorance picture. I am getting used to it. We walk to the gates. The plain is not even there, it’s delayed. I ask Delta agent at the gate (while she is working on passengers with delayed connections, and my mom should be one of them) to check my mom’s ticket. If possible, to arrange a later connecting flight. The agent does nothing. The agent assures me, that despite the delay, the plane will be in Amsterdam by 9 AM for sure, and my mom won’t miss a thing.

I wave my mom Good-bye and return home, exhausted after talking to the creatures from another planet.

When I wake up, I check the arrival status of her flight on delta.com:

9:31 AM – instead of 9:00 AM that Delta agent was promising us with 100% guarantee! It means that my mom was left with 24 minutes (from the plane touchdown!) to run to her next connecting gate. And this is what she had to do – she ran. A 66-year old woman had to run to compensate for all idiocy, hypocrisy and ignorance that we already went through.

Question: Does Delta assume any responsibility for misinforming its passengers?

Landing

My mom made it to Moscow, and the smoke returned back to the city on the same day. Moscow airports were closed for several hours because of the smoke – my mom was lucky to land there. Here is a nice screenshot from her Moscow flight arrival log – my fellow passengers, how often do you get “Smoky” in your flight conditions?

Due to delayed everything, my mother’s luggage was lost. She is trying to find it now.

Conclusion – for Delta CEO

Dear Delta CEO – I hope you’ll read this one day. I have no reasons to like or dislike you (don’t even know your name), and my page was not sponsored by any of your competitors. But I have been flying Delta for a long time – some 15 years, I think, - so I can compare and ask questions. For the past years, the quality of Delta service has been deteriorating without limits, and what I described above is only a last straw in my personal experience.

Undoubtedly, you can tell me the wonderful stories about high fuel prices and W-shaped crises. About the overwhelming complexity of your business in general. Well, as I business owner myself, I can reply with the following: if the task is so overwhelmly complex, maybe it should be done by someone else? Remember BP?

I am not anti-Delta in general - some three years ago I had great Delta service experience, with a woman who spend 1 hour 42 minutes with me on the phone (still remember this!), making a quite complex travel arrangement. But she suggested all best options, she consolidated complex connections, she found the lowest pricing, and she even called me back to confirm. But apparently, things have changed a lot since then. I wonder, what ever happened to her and knowledgeable, responsible agents alike?

Maybe you are tight on money, have to spread it thin? Well, then explain to me your ticketing paradox! I paid $1,074.20 for my mom’s ticket originally – to your company. And then, thanks to your policy, I ended up with the following dilemma:

A. Pay extra $250 to your company for changing the return ticket date, as I kept suggesting, OR

B. Throw this ticket away, and buy a new one, as your employees kept suggesting

Now, think – it is not rocket science, really – would I fly Delta, had I chosen the option B? Let me rephrase it: Would you pay more to a senseless Delta machine that robbed you already, or would you consider another airline? You got it, my dear Delta CEO – option B wins, but without Delta! After my last experience, I do not want to do anything with your company, and this was your decision! You had the seats available for rescheduling, as I was told, but you chose to make it the most disgusting experience of my life.

What complex business logic did you apply to make this straightforward process so dysfunctional?

What Armageddons did you program into your computer system to raise the exceptions?

What does it take for Delta managers to read the news?

Since when sending the people into the most dangerous conditions has become your utmost priority?

Wanna save money? Replace your 1-800-241-4141 with an answering machine. It won’t make any difference to Delta passengers, really.

Wanna save time? Then do not attempt the things you are not capable of.

Finally, wanna be prosperous and healthy? Then do not send people into wildfires, no matter what! First, try it yourself!

With lowest respect,

Your former frequent flyer.

August 2010.

P.S.

One last piece of advise: remove this fatty cheesy ersatz that you feed to your passengers after each international flight. It really makes them vomit.

If you want to contact me, email meisterX AT gmail com. Number X=7+2. Ask your computer.