On our return journey back from our recent incredible vacation in Italy, we had a not-so-pleasant first-hand experience with the myriad of problems plaguing Delta Airlines. While their intention and desire to improve may be strong, their execution is still WAY OFF.
Specifically, we missed our flight and they lost our luggage. Not necessarily unusual, but our experience seemed unusually frustrating. I found, however, that rather than view our experience through the eyes of the irritated traveler, I began analyzing the situation with the critical eye of a business owner and consultant. What took place both at the airport and throughout the 3 days that it took us to finally get our bags illustrated the problems that may well keep Delta from recovering from its recent bankruptcy.
- Lack of Communication. When we got off our flight with less than 45 minutes before our connection, we were told we would have ‘no problem’ making our connection. We were right to be skeptical. It took us 20 minutes to get our bags, go through customs, and then recheck them only to be told we had to go out of security, across 2 terminals, and then back through security. Chances of making our flight? 0%.
Likewise, we were told that when our bags had been found we would be called to schedule them for delivery. Bag #1, they called for delivery, lost the bag, called for delivery again (they would be there within 2 hours!) and then showed up at 2:30 a.m., approximately 17.5 hours after the first call. For bag #2, we never got a call to schedule delivery but they showed up and rang our doorbell at half past midnight.
- Finger pointing with so-called partners. We made our reservations over the phone with a Delta representative. Because they have a ‘partnership’ with Alitalia, our return flight from Rome to JFK was booked with them, though through Delta. All of our paperwork had Delta’s logo on it and our flights even had dual numbers: one for Alitalia and one for Delta. When it came time to figure out who was going to pay for us to get from JFK to LaGuardia because we had missed the last flight from JFK to our destination, we were told by the Delta agent “you need to talk to Alitalia.” Excuse me? We didn’t book with Alitalia – we booked with YOU. Didn’t make a difference. This so-called partnership was convenient when trying to collect money but dissolved when money needed to be shelled out.
- No culture of customer service. Never mind the throngs of over-worked and non-caring employees – it WAS Friday night at JFK, after all. When we were trying to determine how to get to LaGuardia, we were no where NEAR an Alitalia desk. We were going to be lucky to catch our newly-rescheduled flight with the tight timeframe we had. We just wanted them to pay for us to get to the other airport they just booked us out of. No such luck. We would also be flying into a different airport than the one our car was parked at. Good luck getting anyone to pay for us to get from one airport to the other – we didn’t even try at that point.
They did kindly suggest we go downstairs to collect our luggage but when we saw the 6 other people in line for the lone representative in the baggage office, we through it best to leave our bags in order to make our next flight.
Contrast our experience with a story I heard about a recent issue between Southwest Airlines and one of its partners. The partner had severely and purposely overbooked a flight from Las Vegas to Hawaii and when over 30 passengers were left stranded, refused to put them up in a hotel. Enter Southwest. Even though it was not their flight and they had nothing to do with the passengers being stranded, THEY PAID for them all to stay at not just a crappy motel, but a nice hotel, because many of the customers had booked through Southwest. I’ve also heard stories about passengers who have been stranded on a runway because of weather receiving an apology letter from Southwest for their inconvenience, even though it was an act of God.
I would like to think when the management of a company knows it is in trouble, which Delta has known for a long time, they realize changes are required to pull it out. After all, Einstein said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.” I am not naïve enough to think that radical change can happen over night, but for this company to survive, it better happen sooner rather than later.
