Originally Posted by
swag
All of the major US carriers have pretty similar and very good safety records. The delay you experienced is evidence of that. The fact that they're willing to delay a flight for so long to fix minor problems is a positive sign. It's the airline that says, "oh, it's just a wiper, we can fly anyway" that should be avoided.
I agree with you, I guess the fact that concerns me more is that they didn't notice a 6-hour worth of fixing (since the desk lady announced at some point that the aircraft had some failures, which most people understood as failure other than the windshield wiper - I don't really remember what she said, but it was clear to me that there were other issues).
So if it weren't for that thunderstorm, they wouldn't have noticed it, and would have flown the aircraft. I guess that's the crux of my concern. I could also take "if you don't know it, it didn't happen" approach with other flights, but I wonder how many of the flights actually do have some defect when they're en route.
Also, is $250 adequate for a 12-hour delay total? (I had other delays). They said it was transferrable, so I'll either use it for a codeshare flight not operated by Delta, or give it away to someone.