topflight

Hi all, new to FT and enjoying all the discussions. I've probably only taken a total of 7 rt flights (4 international) in the past few years, but I'm looking to fly a bit more and also take advantage of mileage programs, so that's why I'm here.

Anyway, I recently flew Delta from MSP to NRT and had a shocking experience. Even now, I feel sick and just feel bad whenever I hear the word "Delta."

I have 46,000 Skymiles, and not much of anything with other carriers.

If you look at the other forums, Delta seems to be disproportionately filled with unhappy customers. Threads about getting cheated or ripped off somehow are a lot more common. What I don't understand is, a number of posters claim that Delta started to go "bad" in the 1990s. If that's true, how can people put up with that for so long?

I'm probably going to focus on other airlines, maybe AA. The way I see it is, if someone offered me $50 to lose my clothing, make me sick, treat me like a felon and steal time with friends and family, I would, uh, refuse that offer.

But before I make this choice... what am I missing? What do happy Delta customers see that I don't?

Evan!

Tell us the shocking experience please.

fly4work

Care to elaborate on what made you so unhappy?

woody125

As for me, I'm a hub captive myself and the last 2200 miles of my commute to work every 6 weeks or so is on a carrier that is Sky Team with no *A or OW to compete with. I'm kinda stuck where I am with Delta/ST for those two reasons.

I am looking elsewhere though...

obscure2k

Appears to have been a mechanical problem for which the OP was offered 25K miles or $200.00

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...-issues-3.html

topflight

In that post I forgot to mention that the food (on the next-day rebooked flight) made both my girlfriend and I sick, which personally almost never happens to me. They also lost our luggage. To top it off, they treated us with contempt.

obscure2k

According to your first post in this thread:
"I'm probably going to focus on other airlines, maybe AA. The way I see it is, if someone offered me $50 to lose my clothing, make me sick, treat me like a felon and steal time with friends and family, I would, uh, refuse that offer."
So, are you going to refuse the 25000 miles or $200.00 which was offered?
Just curious.

BobRoss

Are they? Delta carries over 160 million people per year.

Southwest? 101.
American? 85.
United? 81.
Continental? 62.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_largest_airlines

So, yes all things being equal I would expect to see more complaints about DL simply because of their size. I'm not excusing or apologizing for DL behavior, just suggesting that # of complaints (in a subjective forum such as this) is probably not a good indicator of larger trends.

I haven't done any sort of statistical analysis on it, but the FlyerTalker population isn't exactly a "random sample" -- we've got a lot of sampling bias here.

Moebius01

Ditto. Right now DL is my only option if I want non-stop (meaning 2.5 hours or less commute compared to around 5 or 6 if I start connecting).

The only advice I can offer is start with who flies most out of where you're based, try a few of the airlines out, and decide from there. For me right now, convenience wins out over lack of service.

Moebius01

However, there's also the fact the Delta is ranking at or near the bottom on an awful lot of c-sat surveys recently. That might be driven by size as well, but if it is, it's an indicator that Delta is now too large for its own good.

mike101

Riiight... let's just turn our heads away from reality

BobRoss

This is true. I agree, they may be "too big to succeed". I'm not sure why there's this obsession to be "largest". Obviously there are some economies of scale in a large fixed-asset business as airlines, but man -- when something goes wrong (Irrops etc.) "The bigger they are the harder they fall".

mike101

too large and too unconcerned for it's own good. I am sure they have heard all the complaints related to their rusty website and non sense award redemption prices.. but have/will they do anything in a timely manner?

DLdweeb

To answer the OP's original question, I can think of no good reason for you to stick with DL. Suggest you move on to another carrier.

Moebius01

Of course not. They're so big people have to fly them now. Why bother with actually trying to attract or create loyal customers.