Delta Airlines

This post is a negative post regarding Delta Airlines. Delta Airlines let me down. I'm here in Paris, so in the ultimate sense, they did not. Our flight was fine, 1/2 hour late but fine. The pilot handled the turbulance on our approach to Altlanta fine but it was the lack of service before the flight that let me down. The "fine" part was on a scale from 0-10, Delta was a solid 5. We flew Business Class (really bad food) and used earned miles. Delta was adequate but here is what happened that led into the "fine" report.

My experience with Delta has been that the airline lacks custumer service - even their supervisors. We had reserved 5 flights for this trip:

LAX to Atlanta,

Atlanta to Paris (CDG),

CDG to Amsterdam,

Amsterdam to Budapest and

Prague to Atlanta then home

5 days before the flight, I decided that it was time to review the itinerary and discovered that all of the flights except the outbound flight had changed! No notice, no email, telephone call or snail mail! So I called Delta. I brought this to the respresentative's attention and her answer was those things happen.

Delta had changed us to route our return through JFK which Jeff and I didn't want to do. What was our other option, I asked the rep.? Nothing, there wasn't another option. So, I asked for a supervisor...Ms. Soller-Howard. Ms. Soller-Howard started our conversation like I was in kindergarden. She began the conversation telling me that other people check their flights daily for changes. I had made our reservation 8 months prior so that seemed silly. She kept saying, "I know you are not going to like what I have to say but....") at least 4 times. OK, I get it, you are not empowered and really can't help so you are reading the "Delta Airline's empathy rulebook". Back and forth etc. I asked for another supervisor and was told no. If I had a problem, I had to call back the following day and speak to their coroprate office. BTW, Ms. Soller-Howard flunked Delta's Empahty Class.

The following day, I called Delta again and asked for a supervisor who apologized and explained that the flight through Atlanta had been cancelled. He checked alternatives through Paris and Amsterdam using earned miles but the seats weren't available. He also gave Jeff and I $150 each toward our next Delta flight to be used for one year (not happening). At least he was pleasant.

What's the lesson? Listen to the teacher when he/she is teaching empathy, communication and listening in class. Real empathy when working with disappointing news helps - especially when there is mutual respect rather than reading a script.