Delta - We hate to fly, and it shows.

OK, I’m going to rant a little.

This morning, we took our daughter down to the airport in New Orleans to catch a flight. It was a 6:30am flight so we were up.… rather early…. to get there on time. It seems that to get her where she was going she had to fly at the crack of dawn – layover, you know. (Her layover was as long as her flights.) For the record, I ain’t a morning person. Not at all. So making me get up at 3:00am because of layovers – well, we’ll call that Strike One.

We got to the airport and went to the Delta Airlines desk to check her in (she’s not old enough to fly alone). Once we got to the desk, we were told curtly that since this flight was actually with one of Delta’s Sky Partners, we had to check in with that airline. What?? I bought the ticket from Delta, I said. I’m a loyal Delta customer. She replied that it wasn’t Delta’s plane. I said I knew that, but it was a DELTA ticket. She said, sorry. Strike Two.

I’m looking at the clock and we’re running out of time. So we ran, and I mean ran, to the other end of the terminal to that airline’s desk. One there, the person at that desk was equally as friendly as the Delta person. I had to fill out a form since my daughter was underage, and I had to give name address and phone number of the person picking her up at the other end of the flight. “Camp counselor” and the name of the camp would not do. I had to know the EXACT person, or she couldn’t fly. We had asked Delta (remember them?) about this when we reserved the ticket, and they said it shouldn’t be a problem. Strike Three.

We finally got it sorted out (just in time), and she did make her flight.

I said all that to say this: Delta Airlines, if this is how you treat a loyal customer of more than 20 years, you deserve to go under. I called Delta because I expected good service. Silly me. Next time we fly, we’re calling these guys.