Fly Delta? Not

[Gramto3]

Booked flights for 6 people in May 06 for Oct 06 cruise with Delta.

I went on line today to check my reservation and discovered our flights were changed. Okay, not big deal, right???? Wrong.

Our flight to MCO was moved back one hour. Doable.

Our flight home was moved back 1 hr. 20 min. again doable. But then I noticed that we were flying from MCO to Atlanta at 5:50 pm, from Atlanta to Cincinnati at 9:30 pm and Cincinnati to State College at 3:20 pm. Definitely a time problem.

When I call Delta they said our schedule was changed and the return flight was a computer glitch. Okay, lets fix it. WRONG!

Our first option for a flight home is 10:30 am which won't work. Option two is stay overnight in FL and fly the next day at 10:30 am. Okay, I'll stay in FL an extra day and cancel our DCL transportation and rent a van at Delta's expense. After all, they made the changes. WRONG again. The extra night, meals and transportation are at my expense.

Next option is a refund on our nonrefundable tickets. Okay, but who pays the difference in the price of the ticket now that they will be higher. Delta?
WRONG once again. I do.

So here I am, 64 days away from sailing and need to find an affordable flight for the six of us. So much for advance planning. I will never consider flying on Delta again.

By the way, they are only required to notify you of schedule changes 30 days in advance.......so check your reservations often.

 

[safetymom]

You will find that happens with most airlines. It isn't just Delta.

 

[CarolA]

The only two airlines I know who don't do at least quarterly updates on SW and JetBlue. The trade off is that they release their flights much later, but when they do release them the schedules are pretty set.

Did you check the DL schedule before you called? While I rarely have this issue with DL (I fly them on business and book a week or two ahead) I have had it on AA and find that I do better if I know what options I want and don't just let the agent "suggest" things.

I think your big problem is that DL and the majors are cutting back on flights and little places like State College get lost in the cut backs. So now there aren't as many flights.

(I just checked for a random day in October and found your problem. DL seems to have only one flight a day into SCE and there is just no way to make it on a later flight out of MCO. Could you do another airport?)

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

You will find that happens with most airlines. It isn't just Delta.

Completely true. You can avoid Delta, but every other airline changes flights as well.

The extra night, meals and transportation are at my expense.

While it is an annoyance and an inconvenience, airlines cannot be expected to pick up the costs to passengers when they have to make a schedule change.

 

[LOVETHATMOUSE]

Booked flights for 6 people in May 06 for Oct 06 cruise with Delta.

I went on line today to check my reservation and discovered our flights were changed. Okay, not big deal, right???? Wrong.

Our flight to MCO was moved back one hour. Doable.

Our flight home was moved back 1 hr. 20 min. again doable. But then I noticed that we were flying from MCO to Atlanta at 5:50 pm, from Atlanta to Cincinnati at 9:30 pm and Cincinnati to State College at 3:20 pm. Definitely a time problem.

When I call Delta they said our schedule was changed and the return flight was a computer glitch. Okay, lets fix it. WRONG!

Our first option for a flight home is 10:30 am which won't work. Option two is stay overnight in FL and fly the next day at 10:30 am. Okay, I'll stay in FL an extra day and cancel our DCL transportation and rent a van at Delta's expense. After all, they made the changes. WRONG again. The extra night, meals and transportation are at my expense.

Next option is a refund on our nonrefundable tickets. Okay, but who pays the difference in the price of the ticket now that they will be higher. Delta?
WRONG once again. I do.

So here I am, 64 days away from sailing and need to find an affordable flight for the six of us. So much for advance planning. I will never consider flying on Delta again.

By the way, they are only required to notify you of schedule changes 30 days in advance.......so check your reservations often.

This is exactly why we will never fly Delta again either. We were great customers for the past 20 years - NEVER AGAIN!!. I would rather pay 2x the amount of $$ than to go through what we did for our trip this past year.

 

[Bill From PA]

Ditto the "They all Do It" replies. We've actually been changed more often on USAir than Delta. I have no brand loyalty to any carrier and we're using Delta for our March '07 trip. They changed our return flight so that we'd have landed at home after 8 pm instead of the 11:30 am as we scheduled, but I got it switched so we'll get home at 4:47. Once our flights are booked, I re-check them weekly to be sure our flights are still on the schedule.

Bill From PA

 

[Brian Noble]

And, if you like gambling, Delta is a great airline to book on. Book the cheapest flight you can find (which will be at bad times), and pray like heck they change it. If they do, you pretty much will have your pick of any existing flight with room at no cost to you!

 

[Lostgirlz]

Ok you guys are scaring the pants off me. Me and DFH are going on our honeymoon first time to Disney. We leave on an afternoon flight the night before. No flights direct there and it is a longflight over night with 1 change later that evening. I am using delta they had a low price not the lowest, but not darn 1200 for one. I usually use continental they had decent fares around deltas, but bad times 6-8 in the evening arrival times which we would have lost an entire day no no deff do not want that. They went from really low 540 something-1200 and up. They had a good morning arrival and I wanted actually get there before lunch. Now I am getting nervous cause people are getting bumped or pushed back Yikes!!!!! I already booked delta through a local TA only usually use a TA is for airline travel. I am nervous now I would REALLY hate a mess up on our times. we have a whole big evening planned when we arrive. ugh nervous nervous now.

 

[p2oh]

I agree with Brian, we booked a great fare but it was connecting, then they switched the flights around and I called Delta and ended up with directs flights each way!

 

[QT Pooh]

Hmmm...I'm a happy Delta customer. We are platinum skymiles members and fly almost exclusively with Delta for both business and vacations. Have only had extremely minor problems with them - even on frequent flier tickets.

 

[Gramto3]

I'm sure all the airlines do this, but do they change your flight to a schedule that even they admitted I wasn't able to make and then not notify you until 30 days before you fly? That's what upset me the most. The reason I chose Delta in the first place was because we could fly out of an airport close to home at a reasonable price.

I booked my flights early so we could have seats close to one another, I have 4 small children the youngest being 2 yrs. old.

I'm calmer now and I am not going to keep dwelling on what happened. I am simply going to pay more money now for new tickets if I can find a flight for our return trip.

Thanks for listening.

 

[goofy4tink]

It's not just Delta. Sure, they change my flights so much I'm sure all the CS reps know me by name since I call every single time they change anything on my flight. My flights in Oct have changed about 7 times since I booked in mid-Feb.
But, when my dh flew JetBlue in May, they changed his flights also. I booked flights for dh and dd to leave Boston at 7 pm. This way dd wouldn't have to miss school. But, JB changed it to a 4:55 flight, connecting at JFK, leaving there at 7:00!!! Okay....we'll deal with it. So....my dh watches the flight the day before he was to fly (I was already in WDW!). They canceled the flight! So...he picked dd up at school early, flew to the airport (how he managed to not get a speeding ticket I'll never know!). When they got there, at 2:45, they were told that their 4:55 flight had been changed to one at 7:40!! Ah..hello JetBlue..how do they make the connection at JFK and fly out at 7? They rushed dh and dd to the gate, threw them on the 3:15 flight, that was readying for departure!!!
I don't think he'll ever fly on the last flight out again!! But, even JB changes things...it's just not Delta.

 

[CarolA]

Ok you guys are scaring the pants off me. Me and DFH are going on our honeymoon first time to Disney. We leave on an afternoon flight the night before. No flights direct there and it is a longflight over night with 1 change later that evening. I am using delta they had a low price not the lowest, but not darn 1200 for one. I usually use continental they had decent fares around deltas, but bad times 6-8 in the evening arrival times which we would have lost an entire day no no deff do not want that. They went from really low 540 something-1200 and up. They had a good morning arrival and I wanted actually get there before lunch. Now I am getting nervous cause people are getting bumped or pushed back Yikes!!!!! I already booked delta through a local TA only usually use a TA is for airline travel. I am nervous now I would REALLY hate a mess up on our times. we have a whole big evening planned when we arrive. ugh nervous nervous now.

I actually think you will be fine. (Except that you may be too exhausted to do your big evening, but...) The red eye flights generally only change a few minutes in any direction. They need those planes to get to the other side of the country.

Smaller cities are really the ones getting killed. And of course the NE has has a huge hit this year with the demise of Song. DL is still working through that mess, but neither of these should hit you. However, I would mointor my flights, don't depend on your FA to do it for you. (They probably won't)

Airlines notify in order of your flight. So yes, it's generally pretty close to the flight before they tell you. Now I admit that something is pretty screwy with DL's software on the OPs flights.


However, this "lack of service" is the price we pay for tickets that average $200.... (Look at the price of YOUR fill up this week) The airlines have cut WAY back on agents so there aren't as many folks to call you etc.