Delta’s Meltdown Continues & This Time It Hit Close To Home
I predicted a summer travel season so bad that I was considering tapping out altogether. Well, this weekend, which isn’t even summer yet, was another bad one for travelers. It was bad for Delta travelers in particular. We had our MtM Diamond meet up in Detroit this weekend which meant quite a few people were flying Delta into the hub airport. And, as Delta’s meltdown continues they caught our group in the fallout this weekend. For an airline that prides itself on doing it better than the rest they have had a massive fall from grace these past few months. The holiday weekend, Juneteenth, plus Father’s Day made it a busy travel weekend that some airlines just couldn’t handle once again.
Our Group’s Experience
We had 45 people come to the Detroit meet up this weekend to have a fun time socializing, learn some miles and points information during presentations and make new personal connections. Of the 45 people we had come out to the meetup around 12 had Delta as the airline they were using to fly out on Friday.
Out of that small group these are the issues we saw:
- Flying Boston to Detroit they had their flight cancelled Friday morning a few hours before their flight. They ended up having to take a stand by flight in the afternoon. This was after waiting hours in line at the airport to get their flight booked since everything was sold out online.
- Flying from DCA (Washington DC) to Detroit the member had their flight cancelled Friday morning. They ended up being able to find an American Airlines flight to rebook themselves on at the last minute.
- Flying from San Jose the member’s Thursday night redeye non stop flight was cancelled and they were rebooked on connecting flight Friday afternoon. That ended up getting them in at 4AM on Saturday morning.
- Flying from the East Coast a member had their 3 flights cancelled completely and they were unable to make the meet up at all.
- One member, on the way home, had their non stop flight changed to a 3 leg flight that would have gotten them in at midnight. Luckily, they were able to find a flight to an airport an hour away that only had one connection instead.
That is shockingly poor even if it is completely anecdotal. Especially when considering these flights were to or from a main Delta hub, DTW, and they should have more flexibility because of staff levels and plane numbers at the airport.
Even The Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Couldn’t Avoid It
Funny enough, or maybe sad enough, the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had his flight canceled this weekend. That was after he had a meeting with airline executives saying they had until July 4th to get this issue corrected or they would start to see fines.
You know would have been a great idea? When you were giving them huge bailouts maybe we should have put in some consumer protections like EU261. Do you think that would have changed the way airlines are overbooking flights and putting out unrealistic flight schedules? Not to mention their own issues are creating the scarcity which is allowing them to price gouge their customers.
Final Thoughts
We have our only trip of the summer booked for this weekend and I am expecting the worst at this point. Of course we are flying Delta on the way out so who knows how that will go. At least it is an earlier flight so hopefully that saves us some.
Southwest was the plan on the way home but they have already schedule changed us from an early afternoon flight to a 10:30PM flight. The only other non stop option is early in the morning. The problem with that is that we are a ways from the airport so I don’t think that will work. Being the last flight out seems like a recipe for disaster so I am looking at alternatives now.
Hopefully everyone else out there didn’t get stuck while traveling this weekend. Let me know if you ran into any issues in the comments section.
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I was booked on a flight with Delta on Sunday June 12th out of LAX. When I arrived to check in with my service animal, the line to check in at the desk was over 2 hours. No one would help me or the others waiting in line missing our flights. I was told the delay was due to a broken baggage belt but I think it was a wave of cancellations and people were waiting to get rebooked. The line just to check a bag was hundreds of people long. I’ve never seen anything like it, people crying and causing a scene because the situation was being handled so terribly.
Interesting as we flew home from Vegas to Central IL and had zero issues on June 18th. Even visited 2 SkyClubs with no waits. Most of the issues were East coast based because of weather. It was great trip!
And to think of all the folks that spend endless amounts of time, energy, effort, and money to generate status with these airlines only to be left in the lurch and to fend for themselves when it matters the most.
One has to ask themselves is the Diamond Medallion, Executive Platinum, 1K, MVP, Mosaic stuff really worth it? At least the sting is a little less when I don’t feel like I’ve been loyal to a program that direct reply in kind.
When having status does nothing more for you than for those who are without you have got to question if it’s really worth it.
And to top off their crumbling system, their crowded SkyClubs now have time limits so you don’t even have a place to go and sulk over your delayed flight.
Just hoping my short JetBlue flight to Boston goes well. They did Already change it from nonstop to a layover and it’s from Syr. Fingers crossed