MileageAddict

To the Ticket Agent at the Delta Counter

In Chicago, we marveled at the snowfall on the tarmac. Looking out the window, I joked to my teenage daughter, "Who's going to shovel all that snow off the wings before we take off?" A little part of me inside grew worried by the minute, because I knew that the harder the snow fell, the better the chances were for a delay.

Sure enough, our delay came. I refused to let it bother me, as I was intentionally trying to demonstrate patience to both my daughter and 6-year-old son accompanying me on our trip back home. This was a remarkably hard task, considering that, in the last three days, I had acquired a cumulative four hours of sleep. Regardless, I kept cool with an ounce of pure determination, mixed with a dash of stubbornness.

I ended up sleeping through most of the pre-flight delay, as did my children, but it wasn't until about 30 minutes before landing that panic set in. The flight attendant announced that, because of the delay, we would arrive at 11:00. Looking at the boarding pass for my connecting flight, I realized it was scheduled to take off at 11:02.

Two minutes.

Rest of the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-m...b_4733642.html

orca15

Nice story! Too easy to get mad at the service folks.

fliesdelta

Very nice. Thank you for the uplifting article.

LOCommish

Great story. Thanks for sharing!

DiverDave

Author needs some lessons in anger management and patience.

With a two minute connection, the door on the connecting flight was closed before the door on the arriving flight was opened. Hermes could not have made that connection.

IMO story does not reflect well on the author, who did at least finally (3 hours later) apologize. But it does reinforce that Delta has some great people. ^

David

jjmiller69

I've never had the meltdown but can understand it. In my case I got off the flight 7 minutes before my next flight. I know to short, well it was because of a 2 hr. delay so I had almost 2hrs and 10 minutes originally. I only had to go over 2 gates and got there with over 5 minutes. Door was closed and plane had been pushed back and GA was gone.
The interesting part was I new 2 friends that had left earlier in the day after taking 2 bumps that day to see were they where. They were in my seats, the plane it was over sold and they loaded and pushed away 10 minutes before departure time full. Another 4 people showed up soon after also looking for the flight. We all ended up spending the night in MSP. Nice Hotel and Breakfast but that was it.

AKABrownBear

I fly every week and I've had at least five-six times in the past six months in a similar situation, luckily I've made all of my connections with the minimal time available but really if I didn't it wouldn't be a Delta staffers fault...

I mean it's nice you apologized but when I am close to missing my connections that usually means I have to spend a night somewhere weird, not be confirmed to catch another flight later that day, and I've never thought about taking it out on someone else.

UAPremierExec

That my friend, is the secret to keeping involuntary denied boardings down. Push early in an oversold situation. And pray that some people don't show up. Because any gate agent and airline can now hide behind the "15 minutes prior to departure" rule...

CAETravlr

I like that article. Definitely shouldn't have blown up to begin with, but sometimes things happen like that to teach us a bigger lesson.

MSPeconomist

IMO the only plot twist about this post is the attempt to drive traffic to the OP's blog.

tkey75

Josh looked at his watch and it was 11. His connection was scheduled to depart at 11:02. He and his two young children were still on their arriving plane. How is that at all abusing the 15 minute rule?

The only thing to be mad with Delta about in that article is the fact that the agent moved people from their pre-selected seats to accommodate his family, possibly even moving people out of EC.

Hvr

And no acknowledgement that other people may have also had very short connections.

This sort of stuff happens when you travel.

irishPirate

I was waiting for the part where the GA gave FC seats to the adoring family. Why didn't they get upgraded. <sniff>

Also, why didn't the dad notice his kids were spread all over the plane. That would be the very first thing I look at. Where are my kids sitting??

DiverDave

Yes. Every other person on that plane was also two hours late. It's likely that some of them had connection that they could still make if they hurried.

David

NotHamSarnie

^^

Yep. People shouldn't get to feel good about themselves at other people's expense and comfort (I mean there are exceptions etc but this isn't one of them - particularly given that little kids are just about the last people who need the extra room of EC).