Brandinho1

So they could say they blocked middle seats longer than any other carrier. I’m sure we will see this in our May newsletter “ From Ed “.

lowfareair

Yep - I've flown Delta in the past year because they offer a blocked middle seat (Same with WN when they did it) even though it wasn't the cheapest option or best flight timing. I'd be pretty pissed if Delta said "oops, we screwed up. No blocked middles on this flight to fix our issue" and would absolutely be seeking compensation.

LoungeLizardHugo

I've had bad experiences on Delta 2x-3x more often than any other airline I've ever flown.

They have time, effort, and money to spare to try and tell me how to live my life and how to vote but no ability to manage and run the business to PROVIDE THE SERVICE I AM PAYING FOR. Add in the terrible FF program and they are at the end of my preferred airline list right next to Southwest.

KDCAflyer

Beginning to think that the defenders of this airline are on the payroll.

LoungeLizardHugo

Hmmm

The sycophants are thick and deep on here and always have been. I've been Diamond Medallion (not something I strove for) for several years and I hate flying Delta. Forgot to mention their regional jets are filthy and in terrible condition every time I've flown one (4-6 times per year).

Jon_R

My wife is caught up in this today. I was on a business trip on our anniversary so she joined me and now flying home before me. We paid extra for a delta first class ticket with a connection, basically no cabin service, and a empty seat next to her. What we got was all the bad and none of the good and delta keeps the money. Without the empty seat I would have bought the cheaper direct fc seat on united. Probably could have got a diet coke even something more than goldfish and tiny bottle water. If Delta is just going to back out of their blocking agreement can I back out of the mask idiocy?

She filed a complaint. If delta wants to not do the seat blocking fine but don’t sell me specific product / service then just change it to your benefit at the last moment.

jeet

This is what happens when you treat pandemic as a 5 year impact thing with gradual recovery over 2 yr period - shortage of pilots across all plane types as well as experienced resources to do the scheduling.

With blocked middle seats gone hopefully situation will be slightly better when memorial day weekend rolls around but sadly this will repeat again.
Once is misfortune, twice is embarrassment, thrice is incompetence but hey blocked seats look pretty and new food offerings are coming!

PBA_DC3

Why y’all worried about these flights and cancellations and airline-y stuff. Ed runs a social justice organization, not an airline. He could care less if you get there today, tomorrow or next week. I get it, these issues are potentially significant ones for our society, and are deserving of detailed thought and debate as to how to address them. But NOW is the 18 months that Ed chooses to focus on that INSTEAD of leading and running Delta? Someone needs to tell him that the idea of a self driving airline doesn’t exist.

Can’t believe I’m about to say this, but, bring Richard back.

AMflier

I'm flying LGA to MIA tonight. I specifically chose DL because of the open middle seat policy and the late flight because it was showing very empty, so empty I was afraid it would be cancelled.
My flight is still going but they cancelled the afternoon LGA to MIA and middle seats on my flight are being filled. We'll see what happens tonight.

Adelphos

This has happened every holiday weekend for the past six months. Does Delta just not care about staffing correctly for predictably high volume days during this phase of the pandemic? They are making the conscious choice to understaff / run capacity too low on a consistent basis, I don't understand. I plan on booking around July 4, should I avoid Delta for this trip?

p100a

Ed's arrogance and over confidence in his abilities to run the airline is truly stunning!

ethernal

Fighting a phantom crowd here? I don't see a single person on this thread defending Delta here.

It's completely unacceptable for them to be having this issue. I was willing to give Delta a mulligan for Thanksgiving/Christmas last year because of unprecedented circumstances and pilot retraining, but it's just not acceptable to be happening again. Fleet retirement decisions were mostly made 10 months ago and they've had time to retrain their pilots. There's no excuse to be running an overly hot schedule that they knew weeks ago they would not be able to fly. Pilot schedules don't fully resolve until about 3 weeks prior but they could have easily predicted this and at a minimum they should have been fixing this two weeks ago when they knew they couldn't fly these routes.

Removing the middle seat block is just not acceptable. They better be offering every passenger impacted by this meaningful compensation because most people in Y were paying extra to fly Delta because of the middle seat blocking. Lots of unvaccinated folks flying up to visit their vaccinated elderly family for the first time in more than a year. I'd be frustrated beyond belief if I paid extra and then had the middle seat block promise disregarded because of Delta's own operational incompetence.

What a disaster.

DCAhome

Agreed. One of the reasons many people had flown Delta was their operations and service recovery. It seems they have lost that edge. And, starting May 1st, there's little left to distinguish Delta as a choice.

ethernal

Yes, I've been pretty happy with how Delta has responded to the pandemic overall except for these operational issues.

Pre-COVID Delta did extraordinary things to "get me home" that I never saw any other airline do (although United started getting better in '16-'19). Rescue flights galore, creative last minute plane swaps that took advantage of exceptionally strong jetstreams to avoid delays, mid-flight fresh crew pickups to avoid cancelling a flight due to timeouts... and to see Delta have a meltdown of its own making for the third time in six months is just incredibly disappointing - especially because there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I think that there is no "self preservation" concern at this point that would make them want to save a bit of cash at the expense of cancels.

I'll be very curious to see how good Delta is with reliability going forward. If the past 6 months are any indication I am very concerned.

jeet

He is a bean counter and, based on his memos - a wannabe politician
DL needs leadership of an operational guy like Richard was.

Still too many pilots who are unassigned which means their certifications and trainings are not current. Resource scheduling probably knew weeks in advance that the bookings they have are not sustainable with current resources but nothing moved. Prepare for more operational pain in coming weeks.