Daremo999

Seems to me one of the larger travel sites that focus on points (I didn't want to list the ones I know and possible miss ones I don't) and the airline industry in general should do an article about this. This is pretty outrageous behavior especially coming from DL who appears to actually care (to a point) about their customers and their experiences with DL service.

I also wonder if senior leadership at DL is aware this kind of thing happens in this manner (meaning the terrible way it was handled during and post). Imagine if OP was not as calm and as easy going as he seems and made a big issue out of it, this could have gone viral under different circumstances.

ATOBTTR

Isn't a DYKWIA even more likely to make a scene about an airline screwing them over? I usually don't think of "DYKWIAs" falling into the category of "accepting atrocious behavior" - quite the opposite in fact. Now a DYKWIA may well expect the airline to screw someone else over who may well just accept atrocious behavior to make something happen for the DYKWIA but that's a different story. Perhaps the term you're looking for rather than DYKWIA is "apologist" or "corporate boot-licker."

xooz

I've never heard an announcement looking for First Class downgrades in my 40+ years. I would think an announcement would be avoided at all costs as you would not want to shatter the allure of FC. If there is a need to downgrade someone at the last minute, there might not be time to solicit passengers individually. That said, hard to imagine the protocol is not to downgrade someone with a free upgrade rather than a person who paid cash... and hard to believe there were no upgraded FC passengers on this or any flight.

MSPeconomist

Even if there were no upgrades, a DM/MM would not have been the lowest ranking passenger in FC. However, I wonder whether there's an argument for using fare class rather than status in such situations. We don't know what fare class the OP had AFAIK IIRC, although I haven't gone back to re-rad the thread to check this.

normalone

So this is something I'd never thought about and now I'm trying to figure out how I would handle it. As a larger individual I either purchase two seats in the back or one seat in first depending on which is cheaper. I'd never even entertained the idea that I could be downgraded while paying outright for first. Would Delta then require me to purchase a same day full fare additional seat in coach if they downgraded me?

ijgordon

Its an interesting outlier case. If you are technically a customer of size as defined by DL they have to give you 2 seats. I would be shocked if they tried to make you pay for a second one after downgrading you. It would garner VERY bad press (not that gate agents really think about that…). The bigger issue might be finding you 2 seats together, at least without shuffling others around. I would imagine that due to the potential headache they may just try to keep you in F and pick someone else for downgrade.

In any event, downgrades from paid F are probably pretty rare (outside of cancellations), as is an agent trying to put someone into your EXSEAT if you booked 2x in Y, so it’s probably not something I would spend a lot of time thinking about.