Why I’ve had it with Delta Airlines!
Last year was a horrible travel year for me - mainly because of issues with Delta Airlines. It was so horrible I kept a log of flights and at the end of the year I sent the CEO a letter outlining why I was taking my business elsewhere once I use my accrued miles. Here is the letter. Sorry for taking over a full page on your tumblr. Like I said, it was a bad year.
…………………………………………….
Dear Mr. Anderson,
RE: ELITE MEDALLION FLYER LOOKING FOR BETTER AIRLINE PARTNERSHIP
I’m writing to express my utmost disappointment in Delta’s customer experience and service. I’ve been a loyal Delta customer for over a decade, achieving Medallion status in the majority of those years and reaching the Gold or Platinum level for the last five years. This year alone, I’ve traveled 45 weeks, taking over 100 flights and spending roughly $25,000 with your company. Of these 100 flights, I estimate that I’ve had an issue with at least two thirds of them.
I cannot begin to understand the challenges you face in this industry. I know you can’t help the restrictions imposed post 9/11, the reduction in business travel due to the economy, the rise in gas prices, the inadequacies of the FAA, the weather or other things I can’t even imagine. These are big issues that impact your business and the consumer’s travel experience. But there are many things within your control that can help make the travel experience smoother for your customers and help to drive loyalty and advocacy for your business.
It seems that I’m not the only customer who is unhappy and telling others about it on multiple social platforms. Here are just a few examples of some others who are blogging and tweeting about their experiences:
Blogs:
http://www.aubreysabala.com/aubs/2009/10/ohdeltayoujustpissedmeoff.html
http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2009-10/24-delta_sucks
http://moremerchant.com/delta-airlines-sucks
Twitter:
@eric50158 Already encountering my first Delta screw up of the day. So it continues.
@ASamalama I hate Delta airlines. I really just want to go home
@lavasusan Ugh, Delta. Switched son’s and my adjacent seats in row 25 to across-the-aisle in row 43. Tickets bought in mid-October. Fail, Delta, fail.
@jonincalgary Duh, Delta airlines you suck. Thanks for making me check a bag I didn’t need to. $20 later.
I know you have a twitter account, but I’m not sure if you are utilizing any tools for monitoring conversations within social media. Even if these comments are inaccurate or one-sided, it doesn’t help your brand if you don’t respond to them.
I’ve recorded the details on almost every flight I’ve taken because I couldn’t believe how much trouble I was having. The following is just a snapshot of the issues I’ve faced that have led me to the point where I no longer want to fly on your airline:
Your equipment is faulty and your airports are ill-equipped to deal with exceptions
This year I’ve had fourteen flights significantly delayed and seven of them cancelled due to equipment failure (that’s almost 20% of my total flights). One of these cancellations resulted in me missing the first two days of my vacation. Upon my return from this vacation, I sent a complaint to customer service through the website only to receive an automatic response. I won’t go into the full details of this travel experience in this letter. But I must admit, I was shocked that a Gold Medallion customer who had missed two days of a ski vacation and was without luggage (most importantly clothing, skis and boots) an additional day due to a Delta equipment failure wasn’t contacted directly and offered a sincere apology.
On July 2, I was traveling to Raleigh from LaGuardia on another vacation only to be delayed for four hours on the plane. Because so many travelers had packed lightly and carried their bag on, the plane had a weight balance issue and needed ballast in the cargo hold in order to take off. The problem was there wasn’t any ballast at LaGuardia. So we had to wait for another plane to come in with ballast or take people off of the plane. It took over an hour for an agent to come out to get people to get off of the plane only to decide that we’d wait for another plane to come in. That plane was then another hour late. Four hours on a regional jet full of passengers was not how I’d planned starting my Fourth of July vacation.
Your customer service processes could use some serious improving
Earlier this fall, I was trying to use a credit for a ticket that wasn’t used due to a flight cancellation. It took me an hour and 17 minutes to get this taken care of. And I kept getting bounced around from one department to another which made the process was even more frustrating.
Again, I know many issues affecting delays are out of your control, but you can help improve the travel experience by keeping your passengers updated. Just last week I was waiting for a 4:00 flight and at 4:30 still had no information as to when it was going to board or why it was delayed. It turns out we were waiting for a flight attendant to come in from Cincinnati who had missed the first flight in. This was obviously trackable in one system or another, as I know there is data showing if a passenger is (or is not) on an incoming aircraft. This seems like a nit-picky detail, but had we just been notified that our earliest departure time was going to be 6:00, I would have left the boarding area and gotten something to eat. Instead I sat watching the board change to 4:50, 5:15 etc. afraid to leave the gate because it is impossible to hear announcements for gate 5A anywhere in the terminal besides the area right in front of the gate. I hadn’t eaten lunch and ended up getting a chance to eat when I landed at my destination at 9:00 PM – three hours late.
Notification of equipment changes and permanent flight time changes
On a trip back from Utah late last Spring, I’d booked a flight choosing a specific aircraft because I knew I would need to be online at that time and it was equipped with wireless. Unfortunately, there was an equipment change to an aircraft which not only wasn’t equipped with wireless, in the change of aircraft I got moved from my aisle exit row seat, to a middle seat in the back of the plane.
Additionally, there needs to be a better process for notifying customers of flight time changes. For months I was staffed on a long-term project, taking the same flights between NYC and Grand Rapids, MI. Therefore, I booked the flights months in advance. Unfortunately, one week I showed up to the airport for my flight, only to find out the schedule had changed and that same flight was now taking off one hour earlier. Having to rebook on a connecting flight turned a two-hour travel day into a nine-hour travel day.
Your agents are rude (and there aren’t enough of them)
I know these employees have a hard job. But they shouldn’t make my job as a traveler harder because other travelers aren’t so nice. The agents at LaGuardia, in particularly, are some of the rudest people I’ve ever dealt with. If I were you, I’d send some undercover travelers through those lines and start holding these employees to a higher standard. There is one agent in particular at LGA who could get herself and Delta into legal trouble if someone with less tolerance than I had to deal with her. Atlanta is the only hub where I feel like you’ve got sufficient staff to provide a smooth travel experience to your customers and only half of them are friendly.
Your website experience is subpar
Actually it is awful. And this is something that is absolutely in your control. I’m a digital marketer. This isn’t rocket science. I would love to sit down with someone who owns “usability” for the website and walk them through why I think the experience is so frustrating, but here are the top five things that frustrate me most:
1. Linear approach to flight selection is so time consuming.
2. Mobile site not updated to new login standards
3. Difficulty in updating payment methods
4. Inability to see all classes of flights
5. Inability to check upgrade list before checking into flight
If you’re going to be one airline, then act like one airline
The integration with Northwest could be a great thing for your travelers. I know I’ve been enjoying the Northwest snack selection much more than what was previously offered. But I can buy my own snacks. What I’d rather do is be able to check-in on a flight that I’ve booked on Delta.com (regardless of whether or not Delta is the carrier). This may be fixed now, but it was a hard few months. One evening in August I was bounced from counter to counter because both airlines kept telling me I needed to check in at the other airline. I was worried I was going to miss my flight. But, of course, due to a maintenance issue, my flight was three hours late taking off – putting me at my destination at 2:35 in the morning.
Recently I booked a flight to Paris, choosing seats that would make an eight-hour flight bearable. However, I found out at the airport (from an Air France agent) when checking in for my return flight home that often Delta doesn’t have the right information about the Air France aircrafts so the seat assignments aren’t accurate. This is ridiculous – especially since it put me in a middle seat when I was expecting an aisle in the exit row.
Your loyalty program doesn’t feel like a rewards program
I know you are working out some kinks with the merger, but I have to call Delta at least once a month to notify you that I’m missing FF credit for one or more flights. In fact, a recent delay in getting my miles credited was so long that I now have to earn 30,000 more miles in order to purchase a first class ticket to South Africa in June. The miles price was 300,000 and by the time I called to get the 10,000 missing miles I needed credited, the cost went up to 375,000. This is so frustrating as I feel like participating in your Skymiles program should not create more work on my part – especially at the Platinum level.
System-wide upgrades are so hard to use. This year I haven’t even received my packet containing them and I’m not even worried about it because I never use them. Why? Because every time I’ve tried to use them before I couldn’t for one reason or another. In fact, on more than one occasion, the gate agent didn’t know how to process them.
I obviously travel a lot, so I have elite status with many travel partners. I must tell you, there is a huge difference in how I’m treated by the other companies versus Delta.
I have reached Platinum status this year and will be approaching the other major carriers with copies of my travel history asking them to match my status on their airline in the hopes that I will only have to fly Delta in the future as a last resort. As a former loyal customer, I felt that I owed it to your company to share my frustration in the hope that you will not lose more customers with a significant lifetime value like myself.
Best
Sarah Simmons
cc: Edward Bastian
Ned Walker
2 years ago • 44 notes
