duped

First, having lurked on this site for about a year, I'm amazed at some of the posts in this thread and many others defending terrible service. It appears almost as if Delta employees post here pretending to be disinterested travelers in order to try to make every service failure appear to be justified while shooting the messenger. Still, the more likely explanation is that this site has plenty of posters who are envious of others' PM and DM status (which I lack, by the way, before I get accused of having a "do you know who I am" attitude) and who therefore are ready to jump in and back up Delta on any service failure that relates to loyalty perks for high revenue customers.

This one is a no brainer to me -- if you have a high value customer from whom you are taking away the perk of a FC upgrade that had already been confirmed, then you should give him his original preferred seat assignment in coach, not put him in a middle seat in the back of the plane. Anyone defending the decision to do otherwise, in my opinion, doesn't understand the importance of a business satisfying its best customers. Delta is in business to make money. The airline hands out perks to high value customers to further that purpose. The airline similarly should avoid ticking off high value customers for the same purpose -- to make more money. The gate agent failed. If this had been a customer who lives in NYC or some other big city outside Atlanta where there are many different airline options for frequent travelers, the gate agent may have put ten thousand dollars per year, or more, at risk based on his/her poor judgment. You drive enough high value customers away and you wind up falling behind your competitors.

Second, when determining reasonable compensation, I would insist, at a minimum, on the cost of a paid upgrade they would have sold at the gate divided by 0.01. A penny is a very conservative estimate of the cost of a mile, so if the seat is worth X dollars to Delta when they are selling the upgrade, losing the upgrade ought to be worth at least X divided by a $0.01.

Germans means he was very close to bringing Nazi Germany into the thread thus enacting Godwin's Law...

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Hmmm .. not sure anyone has gone there and as it was just crap handed out by a pleasant GA who seriously did not give a darn for a one hour flight there seems to be no reason to end up there.

As usual TH is Solomonic in his judgments.

Americans are so used to terrible service they don't even realize how badly they are treated and start siding with their abusers. Classic Stockholm Syndrome.

Certainly the OP got the short end of the stick on this one but looking at it another way. DL upset 1 pax by moving you from 2B to 3xE but had they given you your original seat in EC they would have to inconvenience 2 pax rather than 1. However your DM status should trump any of that rationale assuming the person who took your EC seat was anything less than a DM.

Presumably that second passenger didn't have a seat assignment until the last minute so he should just be thankful he got on the plane at all.

[QUOTE=GatorBlues;19024869]First, having lurked on this site for about a year, I'm amazed at some of the posts in this thread and many others defending terrible service. It appears almost as if Delta employees post here pretending to be disinterested travelers in order to try to make every service failure appear to be justified while shooting the messenger. Still, the more likely explanation is that this site has plenty of posters who are envious of others' PM and DM status (which I lack, by the way, before I get accused of having a "do you know who I am" attitude) and who therefore are ready to jump in and back up Delta on any service failure that relates to loyalty perks for high revenue customers.

This one is a no brainer to me -- if you have a high value customer from whom you are taking away the perk of a FC upgrade that had already been confirmed, then you should give him his original preferred seat assignment in coach, not put him in a middle seat in the back of the plane. Anyone defending the decision to do otherwise, in my opinion, doesn't understand the importance of a business satisfying its best customers. Delta is in business to make money. The airline hands out perks to high value customers to further that purpose. The airline similarly should avoid ticking off high value customers for the same purpose -- to make more money. The gate agent failed. If this had been a customer who lives in NYC or some other big city outside Atlanta where there are many different airline options for frequent travelers, the gate agent may have put ten thousand dollars per year, or more, at risk based on his/her poor judgment. You drive enough high value customers away and you wind up falling behind your competitors.

+1
I am surprised that we have not seen ''if you don't want you upgrade taken away and be relegated to a Y middle seat, just pay for a first class seat"

[QUOTE=havepointswilltravel;19027952]We have seen it, in the "bumped out of first class seat" thread. Unbelievable.

Hilarious thread!

Or maybe the passenger in EC is me...a lowly FO who grabbed a newly-available EC seat when Delta moved OP.

And since I gave up my aisle seat further back, if you want to move me to a middle seat I'm going to be unhappy as well. Ham sandwiches roll downhill...

Mistakes happen. OP appears to have been wronged by a Delta employee who simply doesn't care that OP has been wronged. Pointing to the contract of carriage or terms & conditions doesn't make the OP any less likely to feel as though he's been treated poorly.

Oh delta have history of bumping paying first class passengers to coach too... In my case it involved an IRROP but the way they handled it was not ideal (GA was economical with the information they shared with me).

At the end of the day, airlines are in the business of getting lots of people from A to B... They are bound to screw up now and again. Would be interesting if airlines actually reported publicly about how often they screw up and what their initiatives they have in place to reduce that number month over month, etc

I'll go back to dreaming... ;)

I've been the person on the other side. On an AA flight, I showed up about five minutes before boarding due to a tight connection. They had already given away my F seat but, when I showed up, they went onboard and got the upgradee and moved her back. I was pretty surprised. I'm guessing that's the case here.

Option #2 is air marshall, although it seems like an unusual route for an AM, unless it is a positioning flight.

I agree with everything except the bolded. The captain would have come back and told the OP to take the middle seat and sort it out with customer service later. As somebody pointed out earlier, job #1 is getting the plane off the ground.

Clearly, certain FTers are able to maintain their sense of humor.

Mike