Delta Airlines
Cheap tickets to Lima?
Of course, but that’s the only advantage of flying with Delta Air Lines. For the rest there is no service at all to be expected from Deltas side, even a seat in one of their airplanes can be too much for them.
So forget about the cheap tickets and pay a little extra for the service that you need flying long distance.
> How Delta ruined the first day of our holiday in Peru:
When we checked in for our flight Amsterdam – Atlanta we were told that they could not book us yet for the connecting flight Atlanta – Lima. In Atlanta we managed to get through all the security checks and other stuff in about 90 minutes. When we arrived at the Delta desk we still had 2 hours before our next flight to Lima. They didn’t have seats for us yet, but we were supposed to sit down and they would call our names to give us our seatnumbers. Well, they didn’t.
More than an hour later they announced that they had an overbooked flight and that they were looking for volunteers to stay an extra night in Atlanta. Delta would take care for the hotel and the volunteers would receive 400 dollars of flight vouchers for another Delta flight. Meanwhile the boarding started, like it was normal to have an overbooked situation, but it all looked really unorganized and hectic with all those people running around with still no seatnumbers.
About 10 volunteer-announcements later we were asked to come to the desk and they told us we couldn’t fly to Lima today. We were offered flight vouchers for Delta as a compensation and they told us that we could stay in their hotel and would fly on the same flight the next day. We didn’t agree with the flightvouchers, as they are of no use for Dutch people. You can only fly Amsterdam - USA with them. Now they offered half of the price in cash and $7,- of mealvouchers for every one of us. We could collect that at another Delta desk down the hall in the domestic flights terminal.
In brief:
- We waited for 90 more minutes at this next Delta desk for being helped.
- There was no hotel for us, the Delta hotel was overbooked as well, we had to find our own hotel and transfer to it. We had to pay for all these costs.
- We were send to at least 3 other desks before we could collect the cash money they were offering us. This took us at least one hour.
- For $7,- no one can eat a decent meal at or around the airport.
- They let us wait for 4 hours for our luggage and finally told us that they had no idea if they could restore it to us and on what time that would be.
- Delta said it’s not their problem that we now miss our booked and paid transfer and hotel in Lima.
- The next day there were about 50 new people who had to stay an extra night, as this flight was overbooked as well.
- Delta states that overbooking is completely normal. Having 50 people a day with an interrupted travel is not normal...
> How Delta ruined the last day of our holiday in Peru:
When we arrived at the airport for departure to Atlanta and final destination Amsterdam, Delta suddenly cancelled our flight. Wednesdaynight there had been an eruption of a vulcano is Ecuador, so that’s why our flight on Thursdaynight couldn’t fly. According to Delta. Not one of the other flights to similar destinations was cancelled, just the one with Delta. We now had to go back to Lima, stay there for 2 more nights and had to come back for our flight on Saturdaymorning. Delta was not paying for any of the extra costs.
The flight on Saturday morning was overbooked with at least 50 people. Again. But this time we were one of the lucky guys.
So that's why our experience and our advise is: Delta: don't go!
> UPDATE: Delta's response to our complaints
August 26th 2006: After two weeks back home in the Netherlands, we received a letter from Delta's Manager Customer Care: " We are happy to reimburse the expences you requested. I've authorized a check, and it will arrive soon. Your continued patience is appreciated". We are still continuing our patience, because nothing has arrived yet...
> UPDATE: Never heard anything ever again
August 16th 2007: Our patience has been tested to it's maximum, but we never received our check, or word from Delta again. So our advice still is: Delta? don't go!