OMG Recently flew Delta and was at check-in ONE MINUTE before 45 minute cut off and..

[sweetapril73]

We recently flew into Orlando Airport from Atlanta, trip was good, no problems. However, coming back was another story. Our flight out was scheduled for 9:30am and we arrived at curb side at 8:30 for baggage check-in. We were called to the counter and began checking in our baggage at 8:44am, per the Delta representative. He told us that he could not check us in at curb side and to go inside for check in. So we did, not knowing why. Once inside and waiting in line another 10-12 mins, we were told that it was too late to check in baggage and/or board the plan and we would have to reschedule our flight. We were given another flight for about 2 hours later and although it was a hassle, we were fine with that. Except, the charged us $100 to do so. They said that we were late to check in although the check baggage sign only says for better service on Domestic flights, baggage NEEDS to be checked in 45 mins prior to departure. There are no consequences or RULES elsewhere. We argued with them for 20 minutes or more and to no avail HAD to pay $100 to get home that day. Has anyone else run into this kind of problem and do you agree that if you are before the 45 min cut off time, regardless if it is 2 hours before or 2 mins before, you should be allowed to check your baggage? This is crazy and we have written Delta corporate office to help resolve this matter and have this money refunded.

 

[Lewisc]

The TSA suggests arriving at MCO 1.5 hours before your flight.

Delta requires you check in at least 45 minutes before your flight and be at the gate 15 minutes before your flight.
http://www.delta.com/traveling_checkin/itineraries_checkin/requirements/index.jsp

Many airlines will accommodate you on a later flight, on a standby basis, if you arrive late "flat tire rule".

You didn't allow enough time. The problem is Delta doesn't want to be financially responsible for getting your bags to your home if your luggage doesn't make your flight. Some airlines have you sign a waiver stating it's your responsibility to retrieve your bags from the airport if it doesn't make the flight but the airlines wind up bending and paying to ship the bags home.

I agree Delta should have accommodated you, for no additional fare, on a standby basis. Sounds like they were able to immediately confirm a new reservation. Was the new flight completely filled?

edited to answer your question, I don't think the skycap has any flexibility, when he hits the button if the computer time is less than 45 minutes it's kicked out. Maybe they should give you a minute "grace period" but again Delta doesn't want to be responsible if your luggage doesn't make your flight.

 

[safetymom]

I am not sure where you have a problem. Arriving only an hour before your flight was not a good idea.

 

[sweetapril73]

I am not sure where you have a problem. Arriving only an hour before your flight was not a good idea.

Well for one, the directions given to us to return our rental car were incorrect or old one. And that is the only reason we arrived at the airport 1 hour before departure. However, we arrived at Atlanta airport at the same time before we left and there were no problems checking our baggage. ATL airport is much busier and bigger than Orlando. The rule is obviously not universal for Delta. Two, we were there in time. My problem is with the 45 minute baggage check in rule that is not posted with conditions prior to consumers flying. I did check in online, so all I had to do was check in my baggage and the sign said 45 minutes, we were within the limitation. If it is 46 mins then it needs to say that, if it's 48 mins then it needs to say that. We made the cut off for baggage check in. Yet, due to Delta redirecting us inside, we were not able to board our flight.

 

[maxiesmom]

Maybe because you bags have to be checked in 45 minutes prior? Not just in the process of being checked in, but checked in? I agree with safetymom, you did not leave enough time to make your flight. You need to leave a cushion to allow for traffic problems and what not.

 

[sweetapril73]

The TSA suggests arriving at MCO 1.5 hours before your flight.

Delta requires you check in at least 45 minutes before your flight and be at the gate 15 minutes before your flight.
http://www.delta.com/traveling_checkin/itineraries_checkin/requirements/index.jsp

Many airlines will accommodate you on a later flight, on a standby basis, if you arrive late "flat tire rule".

You didn't allow enough time. The problem is Delta doesn't want to be financially responsible for getting your bags to your home if your luggage doesn't make your flight. Some airlines have you sign a waiver stating it's your responsibility to retrieve your bags from the airport if it doesn't make the flight but the airlines wind up bending and paying to ship the bags home.

I agree Delta should have accommodated you, for no additional fare, on a standby basis. Sounds like they were able to immediately confirm a new reservation. Was the new flight completely filled?

I believe it was filled, but not sure. Another thing that annoyed me is that they did not try to offer any other solutions. My husband and I were so appalled at the customer service that we couldn't think straight. They could've actually let me and the kids board with our on-board luggage and let my husband catch the next flight with the check-in baggage, which would've only been $25, even still that was ridiculous. We were so shocked that they would narrow it down to the minute, yet would not consider the fact that we were there AT CURB SIDE check in, not in line, but at the counter within the 45 min limitation. It was crazy!

 

[sweetapril73]

Maybe because you bags have to be checked in 45 minutes prior? Not just in the process of being checked in, but checked in? I agree with safetymom, you did not leave enough time to make your flight. You need to leave a cushion to allow for traffic problems and what not.

Well, we did leave enough cushion time. We left our room, which was 15 minutes away at 7:00am. We did run into traffic problems BUT WE MADE IT TO CHECK IN BEFORE 45 MINS BEFORE DEPARTURE. That is the point. We had two bags and had already checked in online. You can't honestly think they should've charged us $100 for this?

 

[dudspizza]

Not laying any blame, but you say you were called up to the curb side check in at 8:44. Is this by your watch or their computer time? Obviously, their computer time said you had already missed the cut off. I don't see how you can argue that point.

I would be bothered by the $100 fee to re-book, though that is kind of a standard fee to change a reservation. Most airlines will let you fly standby for free, but maybe the flights were too booked to offer standby or they didn't think of that option.

I guess lesson learned that you give yourself more time than you did. Traffic, bad direction, etc happen and if you give enough time, you are going to be ok.

Better luck next trip.

Duds

 

[safetymom]

People at curbside are not Delta employees but sky caps.

 

[sweetapril73]

Not laying any blame, but you say you were called up to the curb side check in at 8:44. Is this by your watch or their computer time? Obviously, their computer time said you had already missed the cut off. I don't see how you can argue that point.

I would be bothered by the $100 fee to re-book, though that is kind of a standard fee to change a reservation. Most airlines will let you fly standby for free, but maybe the flights were too booked to offer standby or they didn't think of that option.

I guess lesson learned that you give yourself more time than you did. Traffic, bad direction, etc happen and if you give enough time, you are going to be ok.

Better luck next trip.

Duds

The curb side check in rep stated that it was 8:44am when he began check in for us. And that is my point, it was within the 45 minute limitation regardless if I got to the airport 2 days before departure. The sign doesn't say, be checked in completely, on your way to the terminal with ticket in hand in order to fly on your scheduled flight for the day. It simply states, to better serve you, baggage NEEDS to be checked in 45 mins. prior to departure. THAT'S ALL IT SAYS and the time of 30 mins was marked through wtih a sharpie and written over to say 45 mins. If there is a cut off then they should honor that, not make rules up as they go. And sweetheart I know I am going to be okay, I was okay then. But what is right is right and they were wrong this time!

 

[Lewisc]

YOU DIDN'T ALLOW ENOUGH TIME TSA suggests you arrive at MCO 1.5 hours before your flight. You arrived at the airport an hour before your flight. You didn't allow enough time for traffic, bad directions and time to return your rental car. Delta's rule is baggage must be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure, not started to be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure. After your luggage is checked in it has to be screened and then transported to your plane. You're still missing the point, you missed the deadline.

I think Delta should have accommodated you, on a standby basis, on the next flight for free. BUT that would have precluded assigned seats and if the flight was booked it's possible only some of you would have cleared.

You might write to Delta, but I wouldn't complain about the sky cap and employee that did their job. I'd just ask why you couldn't have been accommodated on a stand by basis without paying any extra.

By the time you spoke with the Delta representative at the counter you wouldn't have had time to clear security and get to the gate 15 minutes before your flight. Sometimes the security lines at MCO are long. It's not even clear you could have gotten to your gate in 27 minutes if the skycap was able to bend the rules. I think most families would not be happy if an airline employee suggested splitting up their family.

A "solution" would be involve you being responsible for getting your luggage from your airport home but the airlines gave up trying to enforce that policy.

edited to say the "penalty" for not checking in at time, either your luggage or being at the gate, is clear YOUR RESERVATION IS CANCELLED.

Well, we did leave enough cushion time. We left our room, which was 15 minutes away at 7:00am. We did run into traffic problems BUT WE MADE IT TO CHECK IN BEFORE 45 MINS BEFORE DEPARTURE. That is the point. We had two bags and had already checked in online. You can't honestly think they should've charged us $100 for this?

 

[traci]

Thanks poster for this info. We are the family you see running through the terminal almost everytime we fly!

 

[sweetapril73]

YOU DIDN'T ALLOW ENOUGH TIMETSA suggests you arrive at MCO 1.5 hours before your flight. You arrived at the airport an hour before your flight. You didn't allow enough time for traffic, bad directions and time to return your rental car. Delta's rule is baggage must be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure, not started to be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure. After your luggage is checked in it has to be screened and then transported to your plane. You're still missing the point, you missed the deadline.

I think Delta should have accommodated you, on a standby basis, on the next flight for free. BUT that would have precluded assigned seats and if the flight was booked it's possible only some of you would have cleared.

You might write to Delta, but I wouldn't complain about the sky cap and employee that did their job. I'd just ask why you couldn't have been accommodated on a stand by basis.

By the time you spoke with the Delta representative at the counter you wouldn't have had time to clear security and get to the gate 15 minutes before your flight. Sometimes the security lines at MCO are long. It's not even clear you could have gotten to your gate in 27 minutes if the skycap was able to bend the rules. I think most families would not be happy if an airline employee suggested splitting up their family.

A "solution" would be involve you being responsible for getting your luggage from your airport home.

edited to say the "penalty" for not checking in at time, either your luggage or being at the gate, is clear YOUR RESERVATION IS CANCELLED.

TSA suggests, doesn't require. We were there in time to check in and board the plane. The rule said 45 mins. Is that unclear to you as well? If it's 46 mins and 14 secs, or 48 mins and 12 secs, then it should state that as well as the repercussion for not checking in on time and it should be universal at all airports. It's not.

Quoted by you. "Delta's rule is baggage must be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure, not started to be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure. After your luggage is checked in it has to be screened and then transported to your plane. You're still missing the point, you missed the deadline."

Does it state these details somewhere that I would've seen it PRIOR to arriving at the airport, ticket maybe? No it does not. You can't spring a rule or requirement on consumers once they have arrived and within the time you limit. Please, you are right, they should've accommodated us at stand by but they weren't willing to do anything but take our money and rebook us. They were very non compassionate and hateful. Let's understand that $100 won't make or break me or Delta, it's the principle of the matter.

 

[Lewisc]

You learned the consequences of ignoring TSA suggestions.

The rule is on Delta's website, I gave you the link. It says "must", the penalty for not checking in on-time, cancellaton of your reservation, is found in the Contract of Carriage. My guess is your electronic ticket, confirmation, has some langauge regarding checking in at the required time.

You said

it's the principle of the matter

The principle of the matter is you weren't able to check in your luggage 45 minutes prior to your flight and it's questionable if could have made it to the gate 15 minutes prior to departure. The fact that you started to check in your luggage prior to 45 minutes evidently doesn't matter.

Now if you want to ignore principle I think Delta should have waived the $100 fee. Most airlines have a "flat tire rule" that allows you to fly standby even if you arrive to the airport shortly after your flight left.

TSA suggests, doesn't require. We were there in time to check in and board the plane. The rule said 45 mins. Is that unclear to you as well? If it's 46 mins and 14 secs, or 48 mins and 12 secs, then it should state that as well as the repercussion for not checking in on time and it should be universal at all airports. It's not.

Quoted by you. "Delta's rule is baggage must be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure, not started to be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure. After your luggage is checked in it has to be screened and then transported to your plane. You're still missing the point, you missed the deadline."

Does it state these details somewhere that I would've seen it PRIOR to arriving at the airport, ticket maybe? No it does not. You can't spring a rule or requirement on consumers once they have arrived and within the time you limit. Please, you are right, they should've accommodated us at stand by but they weren't willing to do anything but take our money and rebook us. They were very non compassionate and hateful. Let's understand that $100 won't make or break me or Delta, it's the principle of the matter.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

sweetapril73,

I have to agree with Lewisc on this one. Orlando is one of several airports at which Delta's cut-off for checked baggage is 45 minutes before departure.

See Delta's "When to Arrive at the Airport" information at http://www.delta.com/traveling_checkin/itineraries_checkin/requirements/index.jsp

That means you must reach the front of the line -- and the skycap or counter agent must print your baggage tags -- at least 45 minutes before the flight is scheduled to depart. After that, the computer will not generate baggage tags (or boarding passes if you have luggage to check) for your flight.

It's not the airline employee's choice. No matter how much a passenger pleads, the airline employee can't do anything if the cut-off time has been reached. This isn't just the case with Delta. I know that American works the same way, and I wouldn't be surprised if all major airlines have such a system.

It's not enough to be at the curb or at the counter more more than 45 minutes ahead of time. You also have to allow for the fact that there will be people ahead of you.

The estimate that your room was only "15 minutes away" appears to have been inaccurate.

Personally, I would never want to check in only 45 minutes ahead of the flight time at Orlando International. It can easily take more than 30 minutes to get from the airline counter to security, through security, to the people-mover, and to the gate. If you arrive at the gate less than 15 minutes before flight time, your seats may be given to standby passengers or the aircraft door may be closed (or both). In other words, you could check in 46 minutes ahead of flight time, and still miss your flight.

At least you were able to get home the same day. If the airline had been unable to accommodate you that day, you could have been stuck in Orlando until the next day. You would have been responsible for all your expenses.

A $25 per passenger processing fee for a confirmed seat on a later flight does not seem unreasonable. Many airlines also charge a $25 per passenger fee for a confirmed seat on an earlier flight. (Most airlines don't charge for standby, but standby is usually a bad choice because so many flights today are filled to capacity.)

I'm sorry. I'm not trying to beat you up more after your disappointing experience. It's an expensive lesson learned.

Thank you for posting on this board. You may have helped someone who is reading this thread avoid the same mistake.

 

[Lewisc]

I agree and should have said as much. DME picks up passengers approximately 3 hours before flight time. Many posters think that's much too early.

The OP experience may serve as a warning to guests who like to cut it short.

I still think Delta should have offered the OP free standby, but they might have been put behind passengers paying for standby seats and the family might have been split.

sweetapril73,

IThank you for posting on this board. You may have helped someone who is reading this thread avoid the same mistake.

 

[CarolA]

Atlanta's rule is 45 minutes. So you must have just made the cut off or someone bent the rule.


(There are signs at the kiosks and check in counters at Atlanta stating the 45 minute rule! So you should have seen it there.)

I know you think you are getting bashed but I am amazed that you thought this was a good idea. Both ATL and MCO have HORRID security lines. Now at ATL I can use the DL "express" line, but if you can't use that then the line can easily be 30 to 45 minutes. If this is your normal operating pattern I am shocked that this is the first flight you missed. People post on here all the time that you need more time at MCO.....

Generally DL will offer you free standby in this case. However, the OP probably had kids which makes the situation harder. (Free standby means you have to be willing to split. The agent may have thought this was the only way to get them all on one flight. I have talked to DL "non-revs" who have waited ALL day for standby seats on MCO-ATL)

 

[DebbieB]

What I would have done is drop the luggage off curbside first, check it, then return the car. I always do that in Orlando.

I have a coworker in the LA office who had to be in NY for training and showed up at Delta a couple minutes later than 45 min and they also refused to check her luggage. This was early in the morning and they could not reaccomodate her until the red-eye flight in the evening. So she missed a day of the training. Plus she wasn't in great shape the next day after flying all night.

 

[NotUrsula]

Yes, happened to us on AA about 8 years ago (before 9/11, TSA rules, and security delays). We had been in the curbside line for 45 minutes when we made it to the desk at 75 minutes out, and the Skycap then said, "I can't check your bags, you'll have to go to the line inside." Unfortunately he didn't tell us why, so we stood in line inside and ended up missing the cutoff at the counter by exactly 1 minute. (At that time the AA baggage deadline was an hour, but 75 minutes if the Skycap handled the checkin, and no, there was no signage explaining that.)

Our situation was worse, actually, because we happened to have purchased those tickets through Hotwire, and the fine print on that prohibits going standby or making ANY changes. We ended up speaking to supervisor after supervisor about changing to another flight, and *finally* someone decided to grant us the generous favor of selling us 3 one-way tickets to Los Angeles at the amazingly discounted rate of $350/each and allowed us to keep our return tickets without cancelling them because we did not make the original outbound flights. (No credit for the original purchase, of course, because that money was paid to Hotwire instead of AA.) The irony was that our original flight connected through at ORD, while the new flight was non-stop; we boarded two hours later but arrived in LAX 3 hours earlier than our original flight. (The new flight was also dang near empty; there were only about 50 people on the plane, which was a widebody.)

Since then DH has flatly refused to EVER use curbside checkin anywhere or any time. Won't use Hotwire for air, either. The original purchase price of those tickets was $260 each r/t -- in the end the they cost about $700 each with tax, for a total of over $2K. It was definitely the priciest 4-day trip I've ever taken.

 

[perd]

I am not sure where you have a problem. Arriving only an hour before your flight was not a good idea.

safetymom, I'm not replying to your reply - I just wanted to say your granddaughter is one of the most adorable babies I have ever seen. What a cutie!