How is Delta?

[Nermel9]

Hi everyone!

Looking for flights from Hartford to Orlando in late September/early October, and I'm wondering how Delta airlines is...

Usually I fly Southwest, but for a one way ticket, it's already up to $159, which would bring it up to over $300 for my DH and I...I just checked prices on Delta and I can get a roundtrip flight for the both of us for around $350.

They charge for bags, right? Are there any other fees? And do they change or cancel flights a lot, or are they reliable? That's one of the things I like about SW, they never seem to change/cancel their flights! And how do you pick your seats, do they just assign them to you when you buy the tickets, or do you get to pick where you want to sit?

Thank you in advance!

 

[YenSid1222]

Personally I think all the legacy carriers are better than WN...but that is NOT the feeling of most people on these boards.

Delta is a fine carrier. Up until a few months ago they were the largest airline in the world. When you purchase a ticket on a legacy airline you get to look at a seat map and see which seats are open and select from there. You will do this when you purchase your ticket. No fighting over seats as you board. Legacy carriers will board by Rows or Group numbers.

 

[sam_gordon]

You can get the baggage fee waived by getting the Am Ex Delta card. That will give you and 8(?) people in your party 1 free bag.

Yes, Delta (and other carriers) will change flights, planes, etc. You'll need to check your seat assignments often (once a week/every other week). Their "notification" of changes has never notified me.

That being said, Delta is my airline of choice.

 

[Cherinva]

Sorry to say this, but I've had bad experiences with Delta. The last time I used them, they changed our flights and seats 8 times...and never once notified us. When we first booked our flight it was a non stop. The first change they made was to cancel all non stops from our airport.....without contacting us, they put us on another flight which would have got us there 2 hours after and ADR.

I contacted Delta (oh and they changed our confirmation number too....made it very hard to find our flight) I was told that we could pick out a new flight and would have to pay any difference in cost...I said I would not pay any money as they made these changes...I finally asked for a supervisor, and after explaining my issue, she assured me that I would not be charged, and we picked new flights better suited to our need.

So now, we have a layover in Atlanta both ways. Going down, it was fine..no issues. Coming home, we had a hour layover, once there we found out that they connecting flight was going to leave late, so now we had 2 hours..ok...so we looked in a couple of shops, then found some fast food and headed to the gate.....then found out the gate changed. Went to the new gate...after being there a few minutes we saw the gate changed again...by this time, my other members did not move..they wanted to eat...ok....now we are headed to the gate....got there and then I saw that the flight time had changed back to the original time and the plane was already boarding...OH...the gate changed yet again...we are now running to get to the next gate, which this time we had to go to the end of the building, down an escalator and out of the door onto the tarmac.....we were the last people on the plane....we almost missed our flight...I was so angry with them....I don't intend to use Delta again.

I'm sure this is a very unusual case, I'm also sure it doesn't happen that often, but once was enough for me.....I also have other options for air carriers.

 

[YenSid1222]

Sounds like a VERY unusual case to me.

However, gate changes can happen on any airline any time. Just one of the things you have to prepare for. ANY time your flight takes a delay, you should never go to far away as things can change quickly.

 

[francie57]

We fly Delta out of Harford every trip to Disney. We have never had any trouble with them at all. We take the first non-stop in the morning and the last non-stop out of MCO on the way back. Yes you have to pay for luggage. If you pay when you check-in on-line the day before your flight you will save a few bucks. You will be able to pick your seats when you make your reservations. Just check the Delta site with your confirmation number once a week to make sure they don't change the plane being used since that could cause your seats to be changed. This happened to us once and I just went in a changed them to ones that we wanted. I know people will say Delta is not the greatest but if you read long enough you will see that about every airline!! The prices out of BDL have been great for Delta this year. We got our Aug. flight for $170/person with all fees and taxes. Haven't had them that low in a long time.

 

[NewsiesGoil]

We flew with Delta last September for our trip and they were fine. We booked about 6 months in advance and the flight times were slightly different by the time we actually flew out, but Delta and Disney emailed us every time there was a change. My favorite airline is Southwest, so I wanted to fly with them this time but as luck (or bad luck) would have it I had an awful flight delay with Delta on another trip and got a $200 credit from them. We ended up paying $278 for 2 round trip tickets, so there was no way Southwest could beat that, even with no bag fees! On my last trip my sister and I each checked one bag, so it was $120 round trip. I'm not a huge fan of Delta, but if I can save money you bet I'm going to use them!

 

[flamingglobessigmund]

We went with Delta, one way, because even with bag fees, they were cheaper than SW. We had a nearly 3 hour layover in Atlanta, but even with that, we were getting into Orlando earlier than SW. They changed our time once, and that was to set it back 5 minutes. I did pick our seats for the first flight.

My mistake, however, was not checking the seats on the connecting plane. It just never occurred to me. (Dooh!) Our party was separated. By the time I did check, it was too late to change the seat because the plane was full. Luckily, our daughter is an adult so it wasn't too bad. (Although I did have to sit next to Mr Throwing Elbow, but I digress...) Now I know for next time to be more diligent and check online periodically.

I pre-checked our 2 bags online and saved $4. We used curb-side check-in for the first time and it was great! Just gave the skycap a $5 tip and to us it was worth it. He printed our boarding passes (even printed for our daughter who was not checking a bag) and we headed to security. There was also the option to self-check the bag inside.

It was really nice to have our seats already assigned. There seemed to be more room in the row too than with SW.

My son has flown with Delta and when they changed his times, he was able to call and get things straightened out for a better fit that worked for him.

 

[kda]

We've been flying Delta from BDL for years and will continue to do so . No horror stories. Flight times commonly change every few months, but usually just by a few minutes. I check weekly, so can select different seats if we don't like the ones assigned to us. If any problems, I've called and gotten satisfactory results.

Also very happy with SWA, so I choose whichever airline has the lowest fare at a time we want. Now that Jet Blue flies out of BDL, we look forward to flying them, especially due to TVs, 1 bag free, and opportunity to select seats.

My recent experience with booking a trip in May is that fares on both airlines have gone up and down, especially SWA. (~ 15 times in the past 3 months) It's common for us to book one airline down and the other back, due to the lowest price. That's what happened this time. The SWA flight we got for $90 one way, including taxes, was $170 in November, when I first started looking. Good luck!

 

[PCFriar80]

Another BDL flyer that is leaning towards Delta. We have flown SWA multiple times, but the boarding process, EBCI process, and general angst of seating are not worth the perceived savings. Not to mention, I believe that Delta is a better choice for winter travel [And for those of you who wonder why I will tell you]. I have $179 RT [plus $46 for luggage] for our October trip and looking at $190 RT for our marathon trip in January. Yes, they change times, aircraft and seat assignments, but if you stay on top of it and know where you're sitting it is worth it. JMO

 

[petals]

three out of four times I've been to Florida we've flown with Delta and haven't had any problems yet. They've never changed our flight times or seats. The food on board is pretty decent and regarding luggage they do have an allowance of something like 50kg but if one bag is over you can move things around and they do give you time. If not there was a charge for extra weight. They do allow small cases on board as carry ons though. I do notice though when we're waiting in American Airports they nearly always seem to over book and are making announcements to see if anyone is willing to take a later flight but even we flew back from New York with them last September and there was stormy conditions. 17 other flights were cancelled but all of delta planes flew out that day.