On top of that I talked to a chisholm agent that said everyone including RM, reissue desk, etc have been taken out of their normal jobs and have been answering phones. This debacle is costing delta much more than canceled flights in so many different ways.

Had a quick same day trip tomorrow, called Delta pre-emptively since the waiver was extended to 8.11. There was great hesitancy on the Delta agents part in making any changes. They were busy selling the idea that everything is back to normal. The schedule out of DEN today looked quite bleak.

Agent 1: We are working towards getting our flights on schedule. Why do you want to change this flight? I see it as showing up on time. You should be fine. (then passed me over to reissue desk as fare rules did not allow)

Reissue desk: I will have to charge you change fees as the waiver is until 8.10. (I read out the statement from their website about 8.11). Oh. I did not realize it has been extended to Thursday. Then again we cannot make these changes as you realize this is costing us lost revenue (I argued if I leave home at 4AM and it becomes a trip in vain, can I call you to vent my frustration?) I got hold of a supervisor and got it reissued.

Delta is worse than Southwest. When Southwest had their glitch, they opened up the change duration right away to cover the weekend and one could move the flight to any day desired in the entire schedule. Delta is pushing it out one day at a time and back to the old "deny" game. I had less heartburn with Southwest than with Delta and their games.

I had no issue getting my ticket for 8/11 reissued/rebooked around 430pm CST on 8/10....I had a nice agent on some other part of the world (she said she could see the sun rising at 530am where she was).....I explained I saw the new waiver for 5/11 and I want to be on X flight and we were done in 5 minutes.

DL14 ATL-FRA had 60 open seats today (10 in J) which is highly unusual this time of the year. Likely due to people changing plans or missing connections. They even reopened the door / brought the jetway back to the plane to allow some late arrivals to board very last minute.

I think the lost revenue/reputation the last couple days would pay for an awful lot of IT.

So I still find it completely funny (i.e. sad) that they are choosing to drag out waivers one day at a time. They know s&*t is NOT going to be fixed extend it a few days and move the hell on.

Also remember these fee waivers are a bonus to you DL's customer. I still find it mindblowingly funny that they think this is a "gift" to customers.

"Gee thanks for making for free a fee you would normally charge for because of your (DL) screw up."

When someone is frustrated with DL and says I want to move on, why is it always "is the grass really greener" the argument?

One can only assume, but when you choose to use architecture that was outdated when Woodrow Wilson was in office, and a CIO who claims to run on a $250 million a year budget with this outcome then its a good bet this will go down again.

As for people in DC, Chicago, SF, Miami, etc. and remain loyal to Delta I will never understand it. I am loyal to DL because of being based in ATL. If I ever moved to Seattle for example Alaska Air here I come, Dallas hello AA, etc.

I was on DTW-FRA Monday. (Yes Monday)
We left with 77 open seats in Y and 19 in J. I was in D1. We had excellent service from the crew.

some people value nonstop service; some people value upgrades; some people value how airline staff treat them, both at their home airport and wherever else they may happen to be; some people value IROPS recovery; etc etc etc -- and a lot depends on the routes that they fly

I divide my time between DC and SEA: yes the AS nonstops are great, but:
(1) there are times when the morning flight from DCA is sold out or ridiculously expensive; as far as options, AS only offers BWI-LAX-SEA, and nothing from IAD
(2) I'd REALLY like a redeye return to DCA (I have to leave ~630pm on SEA-LAX-BWI, but actually get to the office about the time I'd be landing after taking DL's 10pm via JFK)

Do people working in RM know how to answer phones and book tickets?

Some do.

As much as I hate flying AA, think its looking like the right decision this week.

With a few exceptions, DL has been on a downward trend for several years. Maybe this issue is just a manifestation of that. But UA has a long way to go. A close friend of mine who flies a lot on UA (SFO based, and expects to get GS soon) said that UA is clearly improving. But very slowly.

I love the "I am taking my business to airline X after this rants"


After all none of the other majors have ever had anything like this happen.

http://www.latimes.com/business/
"The grounding of hundreds of United Airlines flights because of a computer glitch marked the latest in a series of airline delays and cancellations in the last few years that experts blame on massive, interconnected computer systems that lack sufficient staff and financial backing."


"Well, yesterday was not a day that you wanted to be traveling on American Airlines. The carrier cancelled all of its main routes for several hours, and also many of its commuter flights, as well. Almost 2,000 flights were infected in all. American blames computer networking problems."

http://www.npr.org/2013/04/17/177555...-cancellations


That's OK. I am sure Delta picked up the flyers running from Airline X after their last melt down.

It's just churn.....No real impact on an airline.

Finally made it home, albeit 24 hours delayed and after two canceled flights. The only time I was really stressed out was when my travel agency and Delta were showing different bookings for me; having to go through both a travel agency AND a booking agency for work travel just adds two more layers of confusion to things. On the plus side, the travel agency was (eventually, not for the first day or two) able to get through to Delta without the 5-6 hour callback times I was experiencing, so that was nice.

All in all I ended up missing an hour of a work meeting due to my 4 hour outbound delayed, and suffered decreased productivity during the 24 hour delay as I was doing work remotely and not on the work network and so didn't have access to some services I needed. I also had to cancel dinner with some friends who were of course understanding.

The one thing that would've been nicer was if the website had let me rebook cancelled flights online. I know other people were having problems with that too, getting errors. Presumably this is because of the IT issues, but it sure would have alleviated the abysmally long hold times had it worked.

The apology from the CEO was just words. Throwing Delta jets was great spin. I can tell you from personal experience, the dust has not settled yet before they are back to grabbing revenue (it is always one way street irrespective of who screws up). The icing on the cake is when the C levels make their bonuses this year and the passengers who spent the night on the floors of NRT or ATL; they will get over it with $200 Delta Vouchers. Not sure how many end up not getting it or ever using it.