arlflyer

Actual technical question here, and be easy on me as I chose this last week to be the first time to fly DL in probably a good 5 years so I don't know too much about the customer-facing systems.

My flight had a scheduled departure on Thursday and return Sunday (today). I wrote it off after every possibly routing through Friday got cancelled. The online system said that I am not able to cancel online and need to call. Obviously, calling has not worked - as a nobody, hold times are still being quoted at 3+ hours.

Through some gymnastics of clicking around the website, I managed to fill out a "Passenger IROP Form" with the "Passenger Refunds" department. However, I have no clue if this is the right thing, and obviously there's going to be a backlog of processing these.

My reservation is still live, and I could fly the inbound if I wanted to tonight (of course, I'm not in ATL to do so). My question is, by having no outbound (they never put me on one that stick), no-showing for the inbound, and not speaking to a human before the flight flies, am I forfeiting my opportunity for a refund? At least, according to past history. I realize that we're probably in uncharted territory here...

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

MrAndy1369

The discussion over at Reddit is not pretty. A lot of angry people, and a lot of DL shaming (deserved, IMO).

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/commen...elta_airlines/

It made the front page of Reddit, too.

RatherBeOnATrain

Some more coverage:
Ya think? Link to article: The Wall Street Journal - Delta Struggles to Recover From Last Week’s Storms (April 9, 2017 12:23 p.m. ET)
And two new articles from the Atlanta newspaper:

AJC.com: Delta woes stretch into Sunday with more cancellations (11:57 a.m. Sunday, April 9, 2017)

AJC.com: Why one day of thunderstorms turned into a five-day Delta meltdown (12:01 p.m Sunday, April 9, 2017)

KeepItReal

I was on DL 1175 yesterday, DTW-EWR. Gate announced we would be delayed 2 1/2 hours bc the pilots needed to fly the plane were delayed coming in from Atlanta on flight 1278. We couldn't leave until we had those pilots arrive and than get to our plane.

There were two dead heading DL pilots on my DTW-EWR flight that volunteered to fly the plane out on time. I overheard the pilot telling the gate that he had to get on the plane, a 717, so he could use ACARS. Obviously, he needed ACARS to get a message to DL operations somewhere. Finally after an hour of waiting and at about a 45 minute delay, DL said no to the deadheading pilots flying the aircraft. So, we had to wait for DL 1278, ATL - DTW to arrive.

In tracking 1278, it kept posting longer and longer delays in leaving Atlanta which kept pushing our 1175 delay even longer and longer. The delay stretched to 6 hours. Finally 1278 departed Atlanta and was heading to DTW. So now I am thinking to myself, once the pilots get to DTW, will they have timed out? Time would tell.

So, sure enough, the GA announced that we needed to board before the pilots arrived because once they landed from Atlanta, they had 30 minutes to get us out of DTW. We start pre-boards and out of the corner of my eye, you see two DL pilots in a very fast walk approaching the gate. They get a round of applause for hustling but we are told by the pilot that we had to get on the plane ASAP and out ASAP or we will cancel due to crew rest rules.

Long story short, we got out with only minutes to spare. It was a very noble job by those pilots to hustle and help get us out without a cancellation.

This is obviously not going to get resolved before the busy travel week starts on Monday.

I wish Delta good luck,, they will need it to get over this.
Why They didn't let the deadheading pilots to fly is beyond me. I guess there is some logical explanation.

Widgets

You'll get a refund as long as you didn't fly.

wizzy

Plat here. Noon flight 4/8 from Tpa->dtw cancelled about 845am. Root cause is "crew". Next available flight for family of four coming back from spring break was 72 hours later, looking at all possible alternate origin and destinations (I think they cancelled 3/5 Tpa/dtw flights yesterday). I've tried calling four times to see if things have freed up or to inquire about something I've seen online and never gotten less than a 60 minute hold notice, most were estimated between 90-180 minutes.

NoleATL

Its probably time they start talking about the number of passengers stranded around the country. Those that had their flights cancelled and were placed on flights several days later.

Down3Green

The logical explanation is that the plane you were flying might have been an A320 and the two pilots were MD88/90 pilots. For better or worse, we are only qualified and current to fly one type of aircraft at a time. Delta's huge variety of aircraft fleets (as compared to other airlines) gives the marketing department a lot flexibility when things are running smoothly, but when IROPs hit, having so many different types of pilots is a detriment to getting the operation back on track. Furthermore, for a whole host of reasons, a pilot can't just commandeer an aircraft and fly it somewhere without telling someone. In smaller IROP events, pilots have called Crew Tracking and made suggestions like that and they may get acted upon. The problem with this IROP (as I'll try to explain in a separate post ) is that we could no longer get in contact with the people who could make those decisions.

bretthexum

I had to write this up, because a lot of it falls in the "you can't make this &*#% up" category. Extremely disappointed in Delta.

Was on FLL-ATL-MDW on Thurs AM. Flight arrived in ATL on schedule. When I land... I am looking for my connecting flight and the app has no reservation... OK? So I look at a video board and it shows cancelled. Fine, so I call DM line. 90 minute hold time. Ok, I find a Sky Club and check there. By this time I was rebooked on the next ATL-MDW flight. Only 2.5 hours later, so not the end of the world.

About 20 minutes to boarding, they come on and say, we have a pilot, first officer, and a plane. But no FA's. So it delays an hour. Then 2. Then 3. About 3.5 hours late, they announce they found a crew that's inbound that can come over and work our flight next. They said they were 15 minutes out. Then another hour goes. Then another. No FA's show up. Then, they announce the inbound FA crew only has 3 people and we need a 4th for our 737. So then it's waiting... waiting... 4th shows up. Then another delay, because the 4th wasn't in the HR system as working the flight Our 10:55 finally left about 5:30 or 6 PM. After the first cancellation I was about 10 hours late. Not the end of the world, but the experience definitely showed Delta has some massive internal communication issues.

KeepItReal

its possible but why bother to offer to fly the plane if the pilots know they aren't rated for that particular aircraft?

Down3Green

My bad, I missed the part where you said they were trying to volunteer. Again, As pilots we can (and often do) make suggestions like that to keep the operation running during IROPs, but we can't just take a plane without approval and during this IROP and other large ones before it, the system gets so bogged down that we can no longer communicate with the people who make those decisions. They literally aren't picking up the phone

NWAFA

I was just informed about long hold times on the phone. The agents are quitting and walking off the job. They've been on mandatory OT for days with only 4 hours off between shifts.

FAs who live at hubs are opening up their homes to stranded FAs who have been sleeping in lounges and planes. It's the newer FAs who are quitting. They have no seniority and say they are going to try to hire on at the other majors.

Pilots are frustrated at the operation. However, they have a contract and DL must follow the contract. But there are some great guys out there that are refusing to allow their FAs to sleep in the airport while they get rooms. Some Captains are paying for their FA's rooms and putting on their reimbursement forms.

The company is trying to fill missing ground staff positions from other departments. Have you gotten through thinking your all set and find later the tickets weren't processed correctly? Chances are, they were processed by a secretary, someone from stores, anyone else put through a temporary crash course.

Ed is playing golf in MIA while Rome burns.
Update: That would be Ed is at Mar a Lago.

Fly Safe!

NWAA FA

wizzy

Current hold wait is 3-4 hours for Plats. I hung up

Widgets

That's some good pro-union propaganda. Which call centers have specialists quitting because of this IROP? Most states (maybe every state) have maximum workday hours. I'd be interested to know which state allows only 4 hours between 16-hour shifts. the people who are helping Res change tickets were already previously trained in rebooking. The secretaries and accountants are part of the Peach Corps and they're only directing lines and calling the trained rebooking people. I'm a gate agent and I was taking phone calls from Peach Corps volunteers. AFAIK no one who doesn't know how to rebook is trying to rebook. The secretaries are well aware what they can and can't do.

NWAFA

I didn't say anything about pro-union anything. You did. But it is strange that the only people quitting are non-union.

I'm just putting the info out there do what you will with it. Just keep telling yourself about the great service you're getting in the latest Delta melt-down.

Fly Safe!

NWA FA