I got off the JNB-ATL flight last month and had a quick run through immigration. Waiting for my bag had to look at two carousels simultaneously. After an hour of waiting around did not see sign of my 2 checked in bags. I searched around the customs area for a Delta agent and did not find one.

An AirServ agent remarked if you do not see your bag after the carousel has stopped then your bag did not make it. After customs, found some Delta agents chatting away. When I approached them about my missing bags they directed me to the baggage claim area to file the paperwork.

What confounds me is that in the same airport when I flew on Lufthansa and my bag did not make it, the Lufthansa agent was paging me at the carousel area and apologized for misplacing my bag. She took me at once to file the paper work and handed me $200 in TCs to cover for the expenses (Star Gold + Business Class)

Delta on the other hand did not even have the courtesy to page me about the misplaced bag and had me hang around for 1 -1.5 hrs in the carousel area. Seriously if you cannot get your act together at your premier hub then you need to review your operations. When I emailed Delta to complain about this, I received the usual boilerplate plus "you should be happy that your bag was restored to you within 48 hrs, sometimes it gets lost for good"

Got the 2 bags the next day on the next JNB-ATL flight. The flight arrived at 6:30AM and I received the bag 14 hrs later. It takes as long to deliver the bag in ATL as the actual flight from JNB - ATL

Now tell me why should I choose Delta? I might as well fly JNB-FRA-ATL. (The prompt answer from the Delta agent in ATL was "Suit yourself")