My wife and I finally are back from California after getting snarled in the Delta Airlines / IT meltdown. Trip home took 30 hours and featured cancellations, de-boarding after sitting on a plane for two hours, downgrades from first to main cabin for redeye reroute via Boston, and raging incompetence/indifference last Friday by DL agents in SFO.

After being deboarded from our flight to ATL, we waited in separate help lines in SFO and both called, texted and attempted to use the app. Thousands of stranded passengers. Calls were immediately put on hold with bad muzak. App didn’t work. Texts never answered. It was so crowded with unhappy and sometimes angry fellow travelers that you could barely move.

After waiting a half hour in the help lines and seeing that not one passenger actually was helped, we decided to spend the night in San Fran. Checked on our bags on the way out and had a stroke of luck. Encountered a DL redcoat who handled the reroute rebook. Our new redeye flight to BOS departed two hours late, as did the BOS-JAX connection. But we were home.

Bags not so fortunate. One arrived three days later, the second five days later.

Each day after returning, I contacted DL several times a day by text, app and phone and always received the same set of answers. Text said yes they’re on the way. App said still in SFO. Phone agent said perhaps on the way but she didn’t know. What fun!

When bag 1 arrived, JAX bag service said it would take another day or two to be delivered from the airport. I went to the airport and got it myself. Regarding bag 2, the JAX agent assured me that “at least we think we know where it is.” Surprisingly enough, bag 2 was delivered to us the same morning it arrived.

The kicker is that we both tested positive for Covid.