Long story short:

Mechanical IRROPS resulted in a 2.5 hour delay DTW - JFK and a missed connection JFK - TLV. As a result, we were delayed a total of 8 hours getting into TLV and missed almost all of the first day of the conference that was the purpose of traveling. I initiated a complaint to Delta partly because of the actions of the ground staff and partly because of the delay and the result. I've received an apology.


The longer story:

Upon arrival to DTW, our outgoing flight was showing a 20 minute delay. Not terrible - we had a 2 hour connection to make the JFK-TLV flight that afternoon. After waiting for about 30 minutes, the gate agent announces that the incoming plane has not yet left GRR and the delay is now 50 minutes. Concerning but not yet critical. The GA also announces that the flight is oversold and they are looking for 5 volunteers - $800 in vouchers to take a later flight. We were approached specifically because it would be an easy rebooking to put us on the midnight flight from JFK - TLV instead of the 4 pm flight. We declined since that would mean missing the first day of a 2 day conference that was the purpose of travel. I did offer to give up the seat if they could reroute me from DTW with a decent arrival time, before noon, into TLV. Told that was not an option.

After several more delays, and another round with the GA and Delta reservations we were told to stay on the current flight since we could still make it, and if we did not there are more options from JFK. Fine. Well, we missed the flight - we sat on the tarmac watching the TLV flight load, with 2 empty gates adjacent, but waiting for a delayed flight to vacate a third gate so we could park and deplane. We missed the connection.

Delta's ground staff rebooked us onto the later flight, with a nice 8 hour stay in JFK (and without so much as even an offer of a food voucher) with an apology but absolutely no willingness to make any attempt to find a routing with an earlier arrival. The only option was to refund the ticket and go try and buy one at the gate from another carrier.

When it was closer to boarding time. I approached the gate agent working the flight and asked what seats were available as I needed a seat assignment and given some recent medical problems, the ability to get up and stand/walk without disturbing or climbing over other passengers would be very helpful. I even offered to pay the buy up to Comfort+. No dice. Middle seat in the back, with a side helping of surly attitude and nonsensical rambling about how the weather in NY the day before made me miss the connection.

I've had 4 rounds of e-mail communication with Marsha in customer service including the last message which apologized and stated that no further response from Delta was warranted. My question - would you push it if Delta has thus far been so obstinate?