Delta sucks too

In support of my ongoing airline diatribe, I must say that this guy has the right idea (via Gothamist)

$1 Million Lawsuit Over Delta's "Absolute Incompetence"
May 28, 2008, via Gothamist

A Manhattan lawyer blames Delta Airlines for ruining his mother's 80th birthday celebration and is suing the airline for $1 million. Richard Roth says a Delta employee made them miss a flight to South America and losing their luggage for days, telling the Post, "It was the most outrageous experience I've ever had in my life. It was an absolute disaster. One catastrophe after another."

Roth's lawsuit lists a series of grievances, from a "nasty" stewardess who wouldn't let them know if their connection was on time (the family was flying from Westchester to Buenos Aires, with a connection in Atlanta) to a Delta agent who claimed their flight had taken off when it hadn't ("The pilot is not in charge here. I am. All the pilot does is fly the plane.").

Oh, and the family was also told, when they missed their flight to Argentina, that Delta couldn't fly them there for another 2 1/2 weeks. So, after two nights in Atlanta, the family drove from Atlanta to Miami, where they caught a flight to South America.

Roth, who used frequent flier miles for his tickets and misplaced luggage, says he just wanted $21,000 in compensation, but Delta was unresponsive. Now he wants that $21,000, plus $275,000 in compensatory damages for emotional distress and plus much more for punitive damages.

I have to agree with the absolute incompetence jab. We had a trip up to Buffalo from JFK last year that wasn't nearly as nightmarish, but certainly as incompetent on Delta's part. With no weather problems, we were bumped off an overbooked flight, even though we had booked out tickets over 6 months in advance. We initially not offered compensation because we had "missed the announcement" even though we sat in front of the totally bitchy Delta representative starting an hour before the flight. Needless to say, none of the Delta reps never made eye contact with us, and were the cause of flared tempers and tears.

In the end, Delta was able to get us to Buffalo 4 hours late by routing us through Pittsburgh! We missed Act 1 of Damn Yankees, which Ellen's mom was acting that evening. And in the end, we were refunded our tickets and compensated additionally the cost of the tickets.

For Easter, US Airways straight up canceled a flight on us, luckily several hours before we even left for the airport. They did not offer compensation, claiming that their offer to fly us 24 hours later was a sufficient substitute!!! We ended up renting a car and driving to Buffalo through the night. I had to throw a fit just to get a refund from them. Forget about free tickets, much less an offer to pay for car rental, and certainly not a million dollars for risking my life to drive through 7 hours of blizzard (plus the last hour that Ellen drove through perfect weather).

Our travel plans are usually structured around 3-4 day events, and our arrival is linked inextricably to a schedule. Very rarely, I would say, do we arrive on time to anything that involves domestic flights. We'll stick to driving and training as much as possible, and where not, we'll have to plan our flights to have up to 24 hours of delay built in.

-dr-