My War with Delta, Part Two

Well, I guess it's actually Part 1 since it was my experience with Delta on the way to Key West. In fact, it started way before I ever got on a plane. Back in June, on a visit to San Fran to see my folks (a trip by the way that was on Delta and delayed due to mechanical problems and got me to SF about 9 hours after I was supposed to) I got an email from Travelocity. That is who I had used to book my airfare and hotel for Key West. Said email informed me that "There had been a change in my itinerary and I needed to call them right away." So I called and got the run around and placed on hold for 15 minutes so I finally hung up.

Okay...before i type anymore i want to go on record saying i did start this earlier this week but time got away from me. What with all of the TV watching, hair appointment, running, TV watching.  so i will finish now (since im sitting in Chilis at the Minneapolis airport). 

Fast forward to mid-July/ late August.  I received another email from Travelocity about the flight change and needing to call them right away, etc etc etc. so I finally do. And they tell me that the flight from Green Bay to Atlanta was changed by, seriously, 10 minutes and now I was not going to make the connection in Atlanta. Fine, I say. When is the next flight from Atlanta to Key West? Well, it leaves Atlanta at 3:30 and gets to Key West at 5:30. Yeah, sorry dude. That's not going to work for me. My traveling companion is meeting me in Atlanta and we are on the same flight. Is there an earlier flight to Atlanta from Green Bay? I swear I was being nice to him. Ok, maybe not super nice but I wasn't yelling yet. Well you can leave GB at 5:45 am through Detroit and get to Atlanta at 12:30 pm. Are you franking kidding me dude??  You are missing the point. The flight to Key West leaves at 9:41 am so why the hell would I want a flight that gets to ATL THREE hours after my flight to Key West?? At that point, I was done being nice. So long story short, I get him to let me talk to Delta and we decide to book me on a flight from GB to ATL the night before so I will make the flight the next morning to KW. Lucky for me, I have a gazillion hotel points and I got a room for free in ATL.  

Now...I would like to tell you that was the end of the horrible experience with Delta but c'mon now. I may overreact but to overreact at that would be a bit much, even for me. 

So Aug 22nd arrives. The day I am to fly from GB through MSP to ATL. I was in lower Michigan that week for work so on the 22nd, I drive 7 hours from lower MI to the UP, drop one bag at home, pick up the other and drive 2 hours to GB. The flight from GB was delayed just a few minutes, which is fine. But that means that I have to hurry to my gate in MSP. For the record, MSP is not laid out well and you have to walk a mile between some concourses. So fine.  I rush to my gate in MSP. We board. Things are looking good. Oh wait...I spoke too soon. 

Planes completely boarded. Boarding door is closed. We are sitting. 

"Uh, folks this is your captain speaking." --- NEVER A GOOD SIGN

"So it appears as though there was a maintenance issue earlier with this plane and the maintenance department deferred it which is normal. However, the deferral only lasts until midnight and we are scheduled to arrive after midnight. So we are waiting to hear from the higher ups as to what we are going to do. I apologize folks. This is a case of  mis-management and I wish I cold tell you that rarely happens with this company. But it happens all the time". 

Okay, seriously?? Did he just diss his own employer to a crowded plane? That does to bode well for us. 

So we sit on the plane for God knows how long while they wait to hear from management. Now, as someone in a management/leadership position, I am never quick to bash those in same positions. But you need to call those m-fers and wake their asses up and tell them to figure this shit out. Because, oh by the way, the option right now if we don't leave is to leave in the morning. After all I went through to get to ATL in time for the 9:41 flight, there is no other option but to get there tonight. I'm not lying or joking or pulling your leg or any thing like that. 

After about an hour or so, they let us get off the plane while they figure this out. After who knows how much longer, they tell us we are leaving but on a different plane so we have to go to a different gate. Fine. No problem. So we FINALLY leave. We arrive on ATL at approximately 2:30 am Eastern time. By the time I get to the hotel (that's an entirely different story because the cab driver was a moron), and get to my room, it's about 3:15 am. I have to wake up at 7:00 am to get back o the airport. Remember when I said I used points to get the room? Yeah, thank heaven I did because if I had paid $100 for 3 to 3 1/2 hours of sleep, I would have been livid. Okay...more livid. Livider??? Is that a word?? 

So I get up and am getting ready and I get a text from Bill.  His plane taxied away from the gate and then they discovered..........YOU GUESSED IT!! A MAINTENANCE PROBLEM! 

At that point, I decided that after my trip to Memphis (this weekend) I was finished with Delta. 

But we remain optimistic and hope that they fix it in time to get the flight to ATL in time for the 9:41 flight that, again, I worked so freaking hard to be on. So I get to the airport and we are texting and I'm at the gate waiting with fingers crossed. They start boarding and I'm still hoping. And then this guy that is NOT Bill sits in Bill's seat. Hmmm....this doesn't look good. 

Billy's plane landed literally 2 minutes after they closed the boarding door. So he didn't get to Key West until 5:30 pm. I was not a happy camper. 

Now I'm not gonna lie. Once I got on the beach with a cocktail in hand, it lessened the pain a little bit. But not enough to make me hate Delta less. And then the return trip happened (see previous post). 

So there you go.  That's my war with Delta. I tweeted my previous post and put in on Facebook. I'm pretty sure someone at Delta read it because I used their twitter handle in my tweet. Of course, I'm also sure nothing will come of it. 

I refuse to say anything about my current flight because I'm not to my destination yet. Stay tuned for updates. 

In the mean time, here's some shots from Key West. 

My War with Delta

I've said it before but this time I'm doing everything in my power to stick to it. Delta Airlines is terrible and I have absolutely no use for them. I have one more booked flight and then it will take an extreme situation for me to ever use them again. I am currently sitting in the Detroit airport at 9:30 pm. I was supposed to land in Green Bay almost an hour ago. But because Delta apparently doesn't understand the purpose of a maintenance department, I once again missed connections. For the third time in 4 flights since June 22nd, I have had flights significantly delayed because maintenance wasn't done or they found something at the last minute or there was a light that wouldn't go off or something along those lines. And I've had enough. The company's lack of care or concern for their customers time or travel/vacation plans has left me bitter, furious and robbed of quality time with family and friends. When you are so geographically distant from said family and friends, losing 5-9 hours of time with them is a BIG FREAKING DEAL!!!!  

Today's situation went something like this...flight from Key West to Atlanta was a bit delayed but that was due more to passenger issues and not maintenance. So I had to quickly get to the gate for my 2:50 pm flight to Detroit.  Fine. That happens. But then we get on the plane and push back from the gate relatively close to on time. Once we push back, and sit on the tarmac for a good 5-10 minutes, the captain comes on the overhead and says "well folks, we pushed back okay but we have a light indicator that has not gone off and we can't leave until it does. So we have a call into maintenance to determine if we can fix it without going back to the gate?" Are you freaking kidding me??? Again??? This is unbelievable. Actually, I take that back. Given Delta's track record of late, it is completely believable. 

Another 10 minutes later, we are informed that we have to go back to the gate to get it fixed. So we do and then after about 20 more minutes, we are told everyone is to deplane and wait in the gate area. Seriously?? Fine, whatever. So we deplane. At that point it was 3:55 pm when I got off the plane. The captain comes out and tells us it will be about 4:30 before we can board again. Do we believe him at this point?? So eventually we board and then we sit there ...........

Turns out that because some passengers had been sent to another flight because they were going to miss their connection, the weight of the plane had changed and so they had to re-calculate weight distribution, gas etc. ARE YOU FEAKNG KIDDING ME???  And then, apparently, the control tower re-routed them so they had to spend another 30 minutes redoing all of that. So what time did we leave, you ask? Oh about 6:00 pm.  And remember what time we were supposed to leave?? 2:50 pm. 

Needless to say, that 3 hour layover in Detroit was obliterated. We landed in Detroit 7 minutes before my flight to Green Bay was leaving. Color me absolutely freaking furious at this point. Well "luckily", if you can even call it that, there was another flight to Green Bay leaving at 10 pm. That flight (which I'm now currently sitting on the plane but not going anywhere) gets me to GB at 10:30 Central time and then I have a 2 hour drive home. Oh and I have to go to work in the morning. 

As I was sitting in the gate area, the gate agent tells us (and this is honest to God what she said) "The crew wants to get to Green Bay early so we are going to board early and go." Okay, so let me get this straight...because the CREW wants to leave early, then that's ok. But you can't hold a plane for a paying customer for a few minutes because her incoming flight was delayed by 3 hours for a maintenance issue??? Really?? Oh and it is now 10:02 pm and our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:06 pm so are we really leaving early? (Update: we are officially in the air and my clock reads 10:27pm. We pushed back at 10:15 pm which, according to my math, means we did not in fact leave early or even on time.) 

The ironic thing, well maybe not ironic just interesting to note, is that at the beginning of their "safety video" the CEO of Delta talks about how great the employees are and the "Delta Difference." If that guy really thinks so highly of his employees, he clearly has never spent time in the maintenance department. If he has, then he and whoever the head of maintenance is need to be fired. I know some great maintenance people that would be happy to take their places. 

Needless to say, I am not happy. Not happy at all.  I have another flight on Delta this Friday to go to Memphis for the weekend and so help me God if any of my flights are delayed for any reason other than weather...well they will understand the power of social media. 

So what is the point of this rant, you ask? Well, I needed to get it off my chest but mostly to hold myself accountable. While it means always having to drive to Green Bay and flying through Chicago, I will no longer be booking flights with Delta, unless it's an emergency. Since Delta is the only airline in and out of Iron Mountain, I will just have to deal with the drive to and from Green Bay to fly United or American (which will be my preferred carrier). 

I know I said in my last post that I wasn't going to rehash all my troubles with Delta last Thursday and Friday. After today's issues, though, I am going to rehash it. However, I will have to do that tomorrow because I just can't do anymore tonight. 

So if you are a co-worker and I seem grumpy, grouchy or just plain bitchy tomorrow, I apologize in advance. You can thank Delta for that. 

Americans vs Europeans

Yes it's been a while since I've blogged. Turns out running your own business on top of working 40 hours a week at another job plus training for a half marathon doesn't leave you much time for anything else. However, since I am currently (and recently as of a few hours ago), on vacation, I thought I'd take some time to blog. Here's the thing...most of you know what's been going on lately so I won't rehash it. Instead, I will share some vacation insight with you. 

First...apparently the older you get the more refined your hotel tastes and your willingness to pay ,ore for a hotel increase. Example: Waldorf-Astoria (2013) versus Best Western (2010). Now, I will say the I got a get deal both times and that may have been the driver. But....the last time I was not on the beach and did not have beach side waiters to bring me libations and othe...oh excuse me. I got distracted by eye candy on the beach. Damn! He's with a girl!!!  What was I saying??  Oh yeah...something about being refined...

Second...Delta Airlines sucks...well...you can insert an adjective/noun/profanity here. But I digress because I'm refined and shit. 

Third...and here's the epiphany I've had since lying in the beach. Brace yourselves because I don't have epiphanies often. We, as Americans, are way more insecure about our bodies than any other country.  There are numerous Europeans here on this beach who do not have the "ideal" body and don't seem to give a rats ass about it. I, on the other hand, am sucking in my stomach and am self-conscious about my bi-lateral hip scars. Not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things but what is it that makes us so insecure? Is not like other countries don't get the same movies and TV shows that we do that show hard bodies (or at least decent bodies) so what is it???  Are we born with that need to be perfect? Do Europeans feel superior and not care? It's hard to say, I suppose. 

I used to say when I was growing up that I didn't like being so thin. I know, it's a terrible problem to have. And as I've aged (and had a hysterectomy that has completely changed my metabolism) I think back fondly on those days and laugh at my naïveté.  I also said that I would never stop eating what I want even if it meant working out every single day. Well...that's changed too! Clearly. 

Ok...so there are people who should be insecure...mainly hairy men...and perhaps insecure is the wrong word. I mean who am I to judge them and their hairiness. 

So...lesson learned today...MK is philosophical when drinking and MK should not blog when drinking. 

More to come...