Delta mobile app error
 

Hi

My family and I missed a flight partly due to what appears to be a bug in the Delta mobile application.

Our flight departure was at 12:05pm. We made past the security checks around 11:15am. I checked my app to see when the boarding is. There was a notification that said "Today at 11:55 AM". Exact time of departure didn't quite register in my mind. I knew it was after 12. So I subconsciously assumed the time displayed is the boarding time. So I took my family to a lounge and got to the gate at exactly 11:54am. The gate agent denied us boarding as it was not within 15 min of departure, rightly so. Apparently, they tried paging us. But the message didn't reach the lounge we were in. We missed the flight. There were no other confirmed flights available that day (Thanksgiving traffic). So we had to stay overnight and take the same flight the next day.

I should have been more careful. Lesson learnt. But I still wonder why my Delta app notifications kept informing that my flight is at 11:55am. It is neither the boarding time (11:25), nor the departure time (12:05). Did anyone else here face a similar issue?

What notification or app detail are you saying messed up exactly? Can you post a screenshot?

I always receive a push notification when boarding actually starts. I have never had an error. Every once in awhile, JFK moves up departure by a few minutes and this shows as the new departure time.

The app doesn't even show scheduled boarding time. Only scheduled departure time. The only boarding info you see on the app is either the push notification when boarding starts, or on the flight details page in your app, where the status changes from "on time" to "boarding" in green.

The app does mess up sometimes and not display a mobile BP at the last minute, but I always take a screenshot so I don't have to deal with the effects of this again in the future as I have in the past

I've had the App show incorrect boarding times during a misconnect and subsequent reschedule. My flight to SLC was delayed by 90 minutes, so I missed my onward connection. It was the last flight of the day, so I was rescheduled on the first flight the next day. However, the App showed the boarding time for the original flight (~8 pm) and the departure time for the new flight (~6 am). So had I actually followed directions and showed up at the boarding time, I would have been 14 hours late :/

I took a screenshot and sent it to Delta tech support, so hopefully they fixed it - that was over a year ago.

This isn't accurate. Your boarding pass will display the boarding time, which is usually 40 minutes before the scheduled departure time (more for larger planes on longer routes).

OP,
I've never received a "notification" about a specific boarding time, except for when it begins. Speaking of which, you should have received one when boarding actually started at approximately 11:25 AM (12:05 departure time minus 40 minutes).

It is completely accurate for Android users. Boarding passes on Android devices (I use a Samsung Galaxy) do not show the boarding time.

Perhaps iPhones ones do (and this might only be on BPs saved to the Passbook). But please be careful before over-generalizing and labeling something inaccurate.

yes, good advice, one should be careful when presenting behavior of (for example) the android app as generalized behavior and not specifying that it's particular to that platform.

What? Yes they do. They have for a long time. It shows "Status" -- "Boards" -- "Gate" with the boarding time below "Boards". The departure time is in small grey font underneath the departure airport.

Mine does. It's on the same screen with the BP QR code. (Today)

The app doesn't push a notification on boarding time. It does to say it's now boarding. I'm betting misread the message and it was that departure had been changed to 1155. Brain saw 1155 and thought that is boarding time. At least that's what happened to me before.

This is my experience, as well, and has been at least for a couple of years. There is also an option in the settings menu that allows you to enable or disable "Check in reminders and status notifications". Having that turned off could explain why some don't see the "now boarding" alerts.

Out of curiosity, was your flight an international flight? I have found that Delta will move the exact departure time for international flights early dependent on many reasons. I have had this happen in NGO, NRT, SIN and LHR. Not sure if that is the case, but I bet it wasn't the boarding time you saw but the new departure time.

Delta moves flights early when headwinds are worse (or tailwinds weaker) or other issues (e.g., routing around weather) make the flight plan fall outside the buffer range provided in the block time. Because international flights are longer, they are more likely to be impacted by abnormally strong or weak tailwinds and so they are more frequently pushed to leave earlier. You will also see them held at the gate (despite no ATC congestion) when the reverse happens to avoid creating gate congestion issues at their destination - although they still "push" on time, presumably to avoid it hitting their departure statistics (probably annoying if flying out of a hub for folks with tight connections).

There could be other ones, but this is the reason why. I see it all the time flying to/from the West Coast when the jetstream is acting funky. From personal experience - the Wednesday/Thursday before Thanksgiving was one of those cases (virtually no tailwind from Southwest US to Atlanta) - departed 10 minutes early, took off 3 minutes after scheduled departure time (i.e., no abnormally long taxi time), landed at ATL with a short taxi, and we just got to the gate exactly on time. Wouldn't have made it on time if we hadn't pushed early.

Android. First push notice I get about boarding is when they start pre-boarding
I screenshot boarding passes religiously

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1006e52f4b.jpg

I screenshot my boarding passes, and on my LG nexus, the DL App BPs have the boarding time.

To the OP: I have, on a rare few occasions, had what I recall as a push notification pop up when DL has decided to try to push a flight 10 minutes early. I think this may happen when WX issues later in the day are possible, and are an attempt to really work the 15 minute gate closure. It's happened to me at most twice, possibly only once. But it did happen, and I did have a brief WTH moment when I saw the push notice.