+1. I can't believe I made it through the whole post.

Seriously....
 

+1

Paragraphs are a BEAUTIFUL thing!

:D

Well, I had a pretty good experience with weather Wed.

I originally had a ICT to MCO booked for Thur night. Finished early and wanted out of ICT. All we could get was ICT to MLB so I booked that.

Flight out of ICT was delayed for close to an hour due to weather in ATL. Then we got to land in Chattanooga for more fuel after circling Rome GA for a while.

Finally got to ATL and not only had I not missed my MLB but it was delayed several hours. Took a chance and asked the Crown Room folks if perhaps I could be rebooked to MCO. Couldn't gurantee but did wait list me on the MCO flight that was leaving before my MLB and I cleared into First Class.

Overall considering the weather situation I can't complain. Granted the original idea to go into MCO was to visit a friend and with a midnight arrival I bailed for the night and headed to a local hotel, but still was better then having to deal with MLB, higher rental car fees etc....

As for kahuna, I don't get the GF upgrade. If she's not Silver you got lucky on the first flight. Probably not going to happen on your flight home unless you have more weather delays. I never even try to get my BF upgraded. I either give him my seat or just give him a kiss as he heads to the back (Latter is probably what REALLY happens. I always volunteer to give him my upgraded seat and he always declines. LOL!)

Sorry for the lack of paragraphs...I do have a college education and all, I was typing it on my Dell Mini which has a ridiculously tiny keyboard with a hard to access return key :), in a rush before going out on Friday.

Anyhow, it turns out that someone must have split our reservation, then manually put both of us on standby for first class on the ATL-CHS flight, bec. when we checked in, we had to use separate kiosks bec. she didn't show up on my reservation anymore. I also noted online that we had our confirmed U-Class seats, and a separate first class standby listing. Then, for the CHS-ATL flight last night, I got an email saying I was confirmed for an upgrade. My gf, however, was not because we were now on separate reservations and were out of irrops territory. On a U-class fare we werent even eligible anyhow to begin with....she was mad, but the plane was full and apart from asking to switch with a random person, I was out of options.

Also the lav on the ATL-BWI flight had been having major problems and smelled absolutely awful...to top everything off. It was overwhelmingly stinky...

It seems like DL does it for PM, even holding flights if their incoming is delayed - know it from friends and colleagues.

I would highly doubt the same treatment for me and FOs as the OP received.

To follow up, DL responded to my email with a reasonable response which included a $100 voucher for my girlfriend and I each, as well as two CRC day passes (though those havent shown up in my email so Im not sure whats going on there). The email response also demonstrated that the person who read my complaint actually read it and did not copy and paste some blather about how much they care. I'm satisfied.

I got off when he started talking about looking for comp to volunteer his seats - kinda made the whole saga pointless.

When several of us were in CVG at the Delta tower, we saw a lot that goes on. And answer is that it all depends on the circumstances. They have a wealth of information available to them to make their decisions but it's all a balancing act. We learned that sometimes gate changes are made to accommodate connecting passengers. It might not be a coincidence that you were running late and it just happened that your connecting gate was right beside your arrival gate. It's gets complicated when only certain planes can go to certain gates, etc. Your best chance for a hold for a connecting flight: be making the same connection that a unaccompanied minor is.

We wouldn't have actually gotten to my house until probably around 12:30AM, and someone would have had to come get me at the airport (or wait, after meeting someone else arriving at 11PM or worse go home and come back). Taking $400 each with no tangible loss in my mind (what would I have been doing at my house from 12:30 AM to like 9, when I would have woken up vs. getting in around 11AM from the airport)...but yeah, I can see what you were saying. The flights before that one were overbooked but we were not confirmed on them. Therefore we could not volunteer our seats any sooner.

Normal or not for IRROPS, good job Delta
 

I know we see a lot of issues around here but just wanted to share my experience yesterday.

Was on DL2049 from ATL - FLL. About the time boarding was supposed to start they announced a delay due to a fuel gauge problem. About 20 mins later, all clear and boarding started. I was about #7 for upgrade and all 24 seats showing as checked in so I just went ahead and boarded as it didn't look like there would be 7 no shows.

Pushed back about 30 mins late and taxied out. Captain says we are #2 for takeoff. Sat for a while but I was reading and not really paying attention. Then I realized that even for ATL, we were sitting for a long time. Sure enough a few minutes later captain says that there's a problem with the other engine so we have to go back to the gate.

Taxi to gate but have to wait a few mins for ground crew. They get the door open and it's now about 1hr and 20 mins past original departure. Here's my only criticism of the whole incident. We sat for about 10 mins with the door open and no announcement. Not even a "sit tight while we see what's going on". Finally captain says aircraft is not going anywhere and to disembark but wait in gate area.

As I get to gate area I hear the GA say that he will get us info as quickly as possible and given a full 757, he's sure that a replacement plane will be found and to just sit tight. About 20 mins later we are told that a plane is available and to go to the new gate.

Everyone heads over there. When we get there, within a few minutes the monitors show the flight info and an 11:15pm departure. (It's about 10:40 so 11:15 is a bit optimistic.) Anyway, a few minutes later I happen to look up and noticed that the monitor says that there are 26 FC seats so we've been given a 757 transcon. I know a few people in Y tried to get switched to the 10 something to FLL but I didn't know if any in F did. I'm thinking that with the swap, etc, any non-revs that might not have gotten on the 10 something will probably try to get on this flight and end up in any extra FC seats. As I'm thinking this, the cleared list pops up and I'm in FC. :D

We start boarding about 10 mins later and I find out that the cabin crew that were on the first plane are not working the new plane. They are just on board so that we could get boarding going while waiting for the replacement crew. ^ I know they normally get paid while the door is closed so not sure what happens here. Maybe this is normal, I don't know but it certainly left a good impression that they did what they needed to do to put the customer first. Anyway we get underway with the new crew and get into FLL about 3 hours late.

Delays happen. They suck but I thought that things were handled pretty well and from my untrained eye, I didn't see much that DL could have done better. All the employees were professional and had good attitudes. In fact the captain made this announcement as we approached FLL "we know you have a choice of airlines to be late on and we thank you for choosing to be late on Delta".

Great IROPS handling on DL 2229 today!
 

Just wanted to thank Delta for taking care of my sister and her husband who were supposed to be on DL2229 tonight from DTW-MIA. They arrived in DTW only to find that the flight was cancelled (an 8pm departure---no options later tonight obviously). Anyway, where the amazing service came into play was when they received a Message saying there flight was cancelled and they were rebooked. Deltamatic had them booked on a TWO STOP itinerary tomorrow through CMH and ATL and arriving in the late afternoon. That obviously wasn't too appealing so they decided to call me and I called in and got an awesome rep that was really helpful and said that he would see what he could do. A minute later he came back on the phone and said that he had rebooked them on the AA flight non-stop at 6:30am that got them in at 9:30am. It was just really nice to see DL actually using another airline and still giving them a hotel (a nice one at that!), meal vouchers ($6, $10 and $10 each) and friendly service tonight even though neither of them have status. It really didn't ruin their vacation plans either because they get a nights stay at a nice hotel tonight (got to the hotel at 6:45pm) and a decent rest plus arrive early enough tomorrow to enjoy the day. These kind of situations are the reasons that I choose DL, it is nice to know that DL wants to help when stuff goes wrong! Thanks to the agent that helped me tonight whichever call center you were at! ^ Hopefully all the passengers on 2229 who were impacted tonight got taken care of like my sister and her husband!

Glad it worked out, too bad it took a phone call to happen. Deltamatic loves double or more connections on IROPS. I had a double connection automatically rebooked for me, and a simple phone call had me on a direct flight 1 hour later. The kicker was the flight was only about 75% full.

IRROPs Anti-Shenanigans
 

Since there are so many posts about Delta getting things wrong, I'll post one about Delta making a bad situation much better.

I started today (well, yesterday) on a DCA-DTW-NRT-TPE-SGN-REP award trip. (Why so long? It was the only outbound for which I could wing a 120k RT award trip.) The inbound for the DCA-DTW leg went mechanical, leaving me with no connection time in DTW. The medallion desk ended up winging two feats I never thought possible:

1) One of the rebooked legs was ATL-LAX, meaning that I managed to, through IRROPs, pull a low-level ATL-LAX leg in J on a Monday.
2) I just boarded a CI LAX-TPE flight ... in F. Again, through IRROPs, I've managed to get an international F flight with miles.

Bravo to Delta for making what could have been a very nasty situation amazing.

Sometimes, they love to fly and it shows. I find that at times like these, DL really can shine turning lemons into lemonade.

Several years ago, my family (5) were stranded in a blizard overnight on the Tarmac at JFK on a KL flight (DL Y award). The following day, DL accepted my suggestion to book us all into the only seats open on DL metal (right before Xmas)... In BE.

Turned out to be one of the most marvelous flights, if not the most marvelous flight, I've been on. (That includes an EK A380 F flight, although sadly, it was only two+ hours.)

Also, Delta threw my bags on my original DCA-DTW flight. A single DM to @deltaassist got it on the last DTW-LAX flight of the day, and onto my CI flight. Bravo Delta, take III.