There are few experiences in modern life quite like flying. You hand an airline hundreds of dollars, surrender your dignity to airport security, cram yourself into a seat apparently designed around the skeletal dimensions of a 12-year-old, and hope everybody involved remembers where the airplane is supposed to go.
Usually, that’s the deal.
Our return flight from San Francisco decided to renegotiate it.
Throughout the day, Delta kept sending us updates that our flight was delayed.
Then delayed some more.
And then, just for variety, delayed again.
Fine. Shit happens. Airplanes are complicated. Weather exists. Crews get displaced. Airports become congested. I would much rather have a delayed airplane than one hurried into the sky when something isn’t right.
So we checked out of our nice San Francisco hotel and reluctantly bid farewell to its magnificent Japanese toilet, confident that within several hours we’d be back home, cheeks planted firmly upon our own familiar porcelain throne.
We’d spent the week being spoiled by heated seats, precision water jets, and enough buttons to qualify the toilet for a commercial pilot’s license. But all good things must end.
Besides, we were going home.
Our toilet was waiting for us.
It had no heated seat. No bidet. No electronic controls. But goddammit, it was our toilet.
We headed to the airport, got dropped off at the curb…
DING.
Flight canceled.
And just like that, Delta didn’t merely cancel our flight.
Those bastards canceled our reunion with our toilet.
Not while we were comfortably sitting in the hotel.
Not before we paid for transportation to the airport.
Nope.
Right after we got dropped off at the damn curb.
Delta’s helpful little message basically boiled down to:
Sorry about that. Rebook yourself in the app.
Enter Pam
Since we were already standing at the airport with our luggage and nowhere particularly useful to go, we figured we’d speak to an actual human being.
Novel concept, I know.
Maybe someone could explain what happened. Maybe there was another flight. Maybe Delta had some magical behind-the-scenes option that wasn’t showing in the app.
So we got in the customer-service line.
And waited.
And waited.
For over an hour.
Finally, after our pilgrimage through the Line of Broken Dreams, we arrived at the counter and received an audience with Pam.
We had approximately five seconds to explain our situation.
Pam’s response, paraphrased:
There’s nothing I can do. Use the app.
Thank you, Pam.
Really glad we stood there for an hour.
I could have received that exact level of customer service from a cardboard sign, and the cardboard probably would have had a warmer personality.
I still hate Pam.
I’m sure Pam has a family. Hobbies. Dreams. Maybe she rescues kittens on weekends and volunteers at the soup kitchen.
Don’t care.
In my story, Pam is forever the woman guarding the gates of Delta Customer Service, wielding the awesome power to tell stranded passengers to go stare at their phones.
Congratulations, You’re Staying in San Francisco
The next available solution meant another night near the airport.
Between the unexpected hotel stay and everything that goes along with spending an additional night somewhere you had absolutely no intention of being, our little Delta adventure cost us roughly $500 extra.
And we’re not talking about extending the vacation at some beautiful San Francisco hotel.
No.
We got a shitty motel by the airport.
Nothing says “vacation memories” quite like unexpectedly paying hundreds of dollars for accommodations you don’t want because the airline you already paid couldn’t get you home.
Eventually, we did.
And then came Delta’s attempt to make everything right.
Behold, Your Compensation
After the repeated delays.
After the cancellation.
After being stranded overnight.
After our hour-long wait to speak with Pam, Customer Service Oracle of the App Store.
After roughly $500 out of our pocket.
Delta graciously offered us compensation for our “little delay.”
A free drink or a few miles.
Well, shit.
Why didn’t you say so?
Here I was annoyed about the extra hotel expense, the lost time, the canceled flight and the complete lack of useful help at the airport.
But a drink?
We’re square.
Hell, throw in a tiny bag of pretzels and I’ll name my firstborn SkyMiles.
The Shitty Verdict
Here’s the thing: flights get canceled.
I can’t roast Delta simply because an airplane didn’t leave on schedule. Sometimes cancellations are unavoidable, and I’d rather an airline cancel a flight than compromise safety just to keep the timetable looking pretty.
What pissed us off was everything after that.
If your solution to stranding customers is telling them to use an app, there isn’t much point in making them stand in a customer-service line for over an hour to hear the same thing from Pam.
And when the disruption leaves customers paying hundreds of dollars for an unexpected night near the airport, offering a drink or a handful of miles feels less like compensation and more like someone handing you a Band-Aid after your wallet got run over by a baggage tug.
Could our experience have been an especially crappy one? Absolutely.
It’s one trip. One cancellation. One customer-service encounter.
But that’s also when customer service actually matters.
Nobody needs Delta to rescue the day when everything goes perfectly. You need them when everything goes to shit.
On our trip, everything went to shit.
And Delta handed us an app.
Final Shit Rating: 💩💩💩 out of 4
Not four poops because they eventually got us home and, hey, flights really do get canceled.
But three solid steaming piles for turning a cancellation into an expensive overnight adventure, providing virtually no useful assistance when we sought help, and then trying to smooth it over with the aviation equivalent of:
“Sorry we stranded you. Vodka cranberry?”
Would I fly Delta again?
Probably.
Because let’s be honest, choosing an airline in America sometimes feels less like picking the best company and more like deciding which particular flavor of bullshit you’d like to gamble on this time.
But if another Delta flight gets canceled and someone tells me to get in the customer-service line?
I’m opening the app.
I’ve already met Pam.
