Don't EVER take Delta anywhere!

[MillauFr]

Jet Blue does have a pretty poor ontime record. I wonder if the reason is they a large percentage of flights flying from congested airports or that their operational performance is not as good as other airlines. It is a wonder the airline ranks so high. Must be because of the new airplanes and great staff.

We are lucky in Seattle to have two of the better airlines that have a big presence at our airport, Alaska and Delta. Southwest has struggled to gain market share here and United is a shell of its former self. United used to have an entire terminal at SeaTac plus Continental had several gates. Now the combined airline has continued to shrink with just a few gates.

 

[Chuck S]

Delta is no better or worse than other airlines I've flown. I've had similar delays on Southwest, Continental/United and American. Sometimes things just happen. Overall, Delta has provided great service for us from San Antonio to Orlando, but lately I fly Southwest because of the checked baggage charge. Even so, sometimes other airlines are cheaper, baggage fees and all.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Never let the facts interfere with cheerleading. LOL

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

TO me making sure my plane is safe and my flight crew well rested does not mean I would never fly Delta again just because they are following the rules.

 

[goofy4tink]

Seriously? These boards are open to all opinions. I ask that we discuss in an adult manner. Every....single....poster is welcome to their opinion. Because you do not agree with another poster does not mean they are wrong and you are right. Or the reverse.

Now, back to the discussion. I fly JB a lot. I've obviously been lucky. I've had very good departure and arrival times with them!! Yes, I've had delays and cancellations as well. But, I have yet to fly with any airline that has a perfect record. You take your chances. Read the fine print people.....airlines contracts of carriage will tell you there are no guarantees when flying....even if you choose a particular flight and a particular seat, the airline can change it on you...they 'promise' to get you from point A to point B on that day. They don't much care that you booked a 7am flight, with seats all together for your family. If it better suits their purposes that day, they can cancel your flight and put you on a flight at 5:30pm, with your family scattered throughout the plane. Do most airlines do this regularly? No, of course not. They want you to continue flying with their airline. But, they have covered their collective butts with that fine print. It's a fact of life.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I think that most people most of the time have a good experience on most airlines.

The government does track things like on time performance and complaints and you can use those to help you make a decision, but it's not like the fact that Jet Blue is late the most actually correlates into YOUR flight being late any more then the fact that Delta had a fairly decent on time record (until the recent melt down) would help the OP with his delayed flight. It's data you can use but it's not a guarantee for your flight. However, pretending the data doesn't exist is not really useful either.

The truth is that any of them can and will have a bad day/flight and you may be the winner of that unlucky day. However, as long as your takeoffs and landings are equal in number it all turns out well!


And here's a hint. When complaining to the airline don't use the phrase I am sure OP has used in his rants "I AM NEVER FLYING YOU AGAIN" . If you just told the agent they lost you as a customer where's their incentive to help you. Also, do not scream or otherwise verbally abuse the agents. They don't control the airline, the weather or any of the 10,000 variables that delayed your flight but they could control your new arrangements

 

[snarlingcoyote]

I flew for work every single week for about 6 years back in the late 90's/early 00's, with an average of close to 200 segments each of those years. I've used all of the major airlines, and many of the smaller ones. They're ALL at the mercy of weather, airport traffic, connecting flights from other airports with bad weather and airport traffic, mechanical issues, etc. None are better than the next.

Southwest used to work the system (may still do, I haven't flown much in the last dozen years) by using smaller "secondary" airports in the big cities (Love in Dallas, Hobby in Houston, OC in L.A., Midway in Chicago, LaGuardia in NY, Ft. Lauderdale instead of Miami, etc) and it made their "on-time" records better. YOu couldn't get anywhere close to Atlanta back then on SW. But, what I made some of my co-workers understand who always bragged about SW's on-time performance back then, was that when it took you 10 hours and 3 connections to get cross-country "on-time", what's the point in bragging about being "on-time"? I could board Delta in Birmingham, fly to Atlanta, get delayed two hours, and still beat them to L.A. by 2 or 3 hours. Short segments into smaller airports was a lot of smoke and mirrors. Now, SW is going into some larger airports, and I see that for 2015, Delta's on-time performance was better than SW's.

They all have the same problems.

You just explained what I love about Southwest. They fly directly to far more airports. I can get to Salt Lake City or Las Vegas or another mid-USA airport from New Orleans in 2-4 hours. It's double that for the other carriers where I am forced to fly into a hub. I love, love, love that I am only 3.5 hours away from Vegas and thus only 7 hours from staring up at the Court of the Patriarchs.

Different needs for different folks, I guess.

 

[maxiesmom]

You just explained what I love about Southwest. They fly directly to far more airports. I can get to Salt Lake City or Las Vegas or another mid-USA airport from New Orleans in 2-4 hours. It's double that for the other carriers where I am forced to fly into a hub. I love, love, love that I am only 3.5 hours away from Vegas and thus only 7 hours from staring up at the Court of the Patriarchs.

Different needs for different folks, I guess.

You are lucky. Southwest has cut most of the direct flights from my hometown. And from another airport only 90 minutes away they now only fly direct once a week.

 

[schoen]

I understand that delays can be frustrating. It almost always seems to me that they come in batches. Recently I was supposed to arrive in LA from DTW at 4:00 local time. One late flight lead to a missed connection to a rescheduled flight on a plane that needed maintenance, and then finally a 40 min VIP/security delay because our Vice President happened to also be flying out at that exact moment. I got to LA at midnight local time, which felt like 3:00 am to me! It was a trying day, and I missed some great time with my friends.

All of the delays that I encountered were a result of Delta being concerned with MY safety. It seems that was the case for the OP too. It doesn't make it less frustrating, but can you imagine the outrage if there was a problem and they didn't address it? just so they could be "on time"

I would like to discuss some amazing experiences I have had with Delta:

1. They are EXCEPTIONALLY liberal with their reschedule policy when they change a flight. Often they will change the itinerary by a few minutes, but will let me change flights altogether. That is just awesome, and they don't have to do that-their policy is to only change flights if there is a two-hour difference. The only time they didn't let me change for free was when the "itinerary change" was a different flight number

2. I misunderstood their same-day change policy. I don't remember the intricacies of it, but I thought I could change my flight for $50 on the day of the flight, and I was wrong. Their customer service was awesome though, and instead of charging me the crazy change fee, they let me switch for $50.

3. during a snowstorm in Detroit most folks had canceled or changed their flights. We were staying at the airport that night, so we got there and saw how dead the airport was, we asked if we could fly out that day instead of our scheduled flight the next day. They let us switch, and we got an extra day at Disney!

4. I was sick on a flight with pneumonia and the flight crew kept tripping over my husband's long legs in the aisle (yep, he was that annoying guy) they offered to bump him to 1st so he would have more leg room, and I could lay down across the bench. it was awesome, but he declined because he was worried about me and wanted to stay with me (he might be the annoying guy on the plane, but he's a sweet husband!)

Yep! I love Delta! they have always gotten me to my destination safely!