So after finishing up my training at the stunt school in Seattle, I got up at 4:45 in the morning to catch my flight back to Michigan at 7:00am... and ended up missing my flight by 2 minutes due to difficulties in getting through TSA. As I'd never missed a flight before in my life, I went to the counter in a kind of muddled disbelief only to find out that the SeaTac airport has been busy like that all summer and that they recommend arriving two hours early- even just for domestic flights. To make matters worse, every other flight that day was overbooked by 5 or 6 people, and my girlfriend, Mari was flying into Detroit to meet me the next day, (so I would need to be there to drive down and pick her up). Furthermore I had paperwork I had to complete and fax in that day or I would have to start my trademark application process for my business (Phat English) all over again which would cost me thousands of dollars to do. Things were looking grim.
When I spoke to the person behind the counter, they offered me the option of buying a seat on one later flight for $800 or taking my chance that a seat would still be open(which would mean getting on for $50 or so). Finally I chose to latter, and much to my dismay it completely filled up as well. I was still stuck. Finally, I decided not to take any more chances and I bit the bullet, and paid $330 for a ticket for the first available flight the next day (7:00am) that would get me home by 2:13pm. Not really knowing what else to do, I went back to gate I had been at all day, and decided to take a nap (using my taekwondo chest protector as a pillow), get some Korean and Japanese study in, and some writing done. Thankfully, SeaTac had free wireless, so I could keep myself occupied.
About 7 hours in to my time there a random guy walked up to me, and told me that due to the overcrowding, Delta had upgraded a flight at 11:00pm that night to a much bigger plane and that there were now 33 seats available. He approached me because he said the Taekwondo chest protector I had on my backback (which I had brought to the stunt school to use as a spine guard during stairfalls) made me stick out, so he knew I had been there all day. From there, I told him that I appreciated his gesture, but that I had already bought a ticket for the next day. With that, he said, "What? You bought a ticket? You shouldn't have to buy a ticket. Come with me." It turns out he was an off-duty pilot for Delta who was just trying to get on a flight himself. From there, he introduced me to another off-duty employee (who was an engineer) (and who also recognized me because of my chest protector) who was also just trying to get a flight home, and they discussed the situation, and decided that something was a miss. Not being able to figure it out on their own, they called over another off-duty guy (who worked in baggage) and who happened to know the rules backward and forwards. They said:
'Hey Ryan, this guy bought a ticket for tomorrow, and we need to get his money back.'
He responded, "Which guy?" and they pointed at me.
He replied, "Oh yeah! The guy with the funny thing on his back. Yeah, he's been here all day!"
Apparently, according to Ryan, due to their poor customer service rating, Delta had recently enacted a new "Flat Tire" rule, which stated that if a customer was under 10 minutes late for a flight through no fault of their own, they should simply be put on stand-by for the next available flight, and should not have to pay more than $50.
As the new plane made the 11:00 flight "the next available flight", according to the new rule, I was qualified to be on it, and shouldn't have to pay. With the assistance of a new woman who had just started working the counter the 4 of them commenced to spend the next 3 hours not only teaching me all kinds of stuff related to flying airplanes but also arguing back and forth on my behalf with the finance department. It was simply amazing. Finally, they won the argument, and sure enough another Delta employee came up to me, and handed me an envelope with the cost of my ticket enclosed. After that, as a thank you to all of them, I took my new friends (plus another off-duty Delta guy who was trying to get home from his honeymoon) out for beers at my treat. As Karma would have it, almost all of them managed to catch a flight home at the same time as me, so as I got to get in line to catch my flight, I saw them get in line for theirs as well. For a day that started off in peril, it ended up being the best way I could have asked for to end my time in Seattle. Regardless of what any one else may have to say about Delta customer service, this is one flyer, who you will never hear utter a word of complaint. Furthermore, from this point on, anyone who cares to make negative generalizations about Delta employees may wind up finding out what my right foot tastes like.
2 comments:
Sorry, but I still say, Delta sucks! The employees may be great, but you are still, sometimes, going to have to deal with the bureaucratic, big brother, greedy part of flying, regardless. I am glad you made some quick friends from Delta. Now, can you say the same for the company??
That's great! Glad they took care of you.
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