Originally Posted by
sspontak
You should have had Delta process a full refund for their delayed flight and purchased the Air Tran ticket on your own. Would the Air Tran flight have been too expensive at that point even with the offset of the Delta refund?
Yes, it was cost prohibitive to do it that way. I tried every option I knew of, and I was stuck. Did I mention that it took over an hour to check in via the FC check-in because of the delay and surrounding issues? The people at the counter were as unwilling to solve the problem as SMS. They wouldn't even look at alternate departure airports. Of course, each time the delay moved out it seemed like a better idea to find an alternate plan to get home.
First delay: 11:40 to 12:30
Second Delay: 12:30 to 4:00
Third Delay: 4:00 to 7:00
Final Delay (after returning to gate) 10:00
So, at first, it seemed like a small deal, and escalated as the day went on. Crazy thing was I looked at the board, and there was no inbound flight from ATL to carry the mechanic in, not to worry I was told, they were brining in a mechanic from LAX. Around 6:30 pm I noticed a Delta RJ taking off from the CRC. I looked at the board, and there was no RJ on the schedule, so I assume they flew the RJ in with the mechanic to deal with the issue.