I don't travel nearly as often as all of you elite status members, maybe 4-5 times a year, and I had an interesting incident happen to me on my most recent flight.

I got on an ATL-FRA transatlantic flight (scheduled to depart on June 18th at 4:30pm). We were all boarded on schedule, and on the runway, ready to take off. Then a thunderstorm hit, and the pilot informed us that we'd be delayed for maybe 2 hours max. During the thunderstorm, the pilot told us that the windshield wiper wasn't working, and so we had to go back to the gate to get it looked at. In his words, this failure was "the simplest thing," and once at the gate, it'll probably take 2 minutes to fix. Once the thunderstorm was over the mechanics got to the plane. We didn't receive updates for ages, and after maybe 30-40 minutes, the pilot told us that this plane wasn't going anywhere tonight. Later on, we heard that there were other failures associated with the flight.

This makes me terrified, because I was under the impression that the mechanics did a thorough check of the aircraft before takeoff. Even just looking at the windshield wipers (since I don't know what else was broken), had it been a clear day in Atlanta and pouring in Frankfurt, wouldn't the landing have been very dangerous? And what were the other failures? I'm really terrified to take Delta again. Does this happen often with other airlines too?

Unless you guys can put my mind at rest, I doubt I'll take Delta again (especially associated to the recent engine failure, and the lowest score in customer satisfaction - the agents really were rude!) We ended up departing a little past midnight, a whopping 8 hour delay, 6 hours discounting the weather.

I tried to call Delta and raise concern about this, but all they would do is apologize halfheartedly and offer $250 voucher. I haven't taken the voucher, as I'm not sure if that's an adequate compensation, and since I don't think I'll fly Delta anymore. Did I do the right thing? Please comment/discuss