Delta to the rescue!

That’s awesome! Kudos to Delta!
 
That is a good job by Delta. They will get a lot of social media kudos for that. It stinks for AA, though. They may have literally not had a plane available to do that, or maybe they didn't try very hard, who knows. But it's kind of a slap in the face.
 
So how about all the other passengers on the cancelled AA flight? Did they get to go on this special flight as well?
 
dmspilot said:
The other airline has a couple dozen planes grounded by the FAA. Delta doesn't. Sheer luck.
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This grounding isn’t something new. If the problem was due to the grounding, no need to let them get to the airport and tell them “ sorry, no plane”.
 
Heard about this on the news since it's local to me. Just one more example of AA sucking as an airline, and why they are last on my list of airlines to fly. Tulsa is an AA maintenance hub, so they have a lot of employees and support staff in the Tulsa area. I'd love to support an airline who has local investment, but they have screwed me over multiple times over the years to where I won't consider using them unless it's a last resort.

United, SWA, or Delta for me (depending on the destination). Emirates for the int'l trips.
 
Of course, Delta would not have done this for its own passengers if it had been Delta that decided to cancel a flight, and they wouldn't have done it if it wasn't a bunch of kids that the media would love. Just a keenly spotted PR move. Still nice though.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
This grounding isn’t something new. If the problem was due to the grounding, no need to let them get to the airport and tell them “ sorry, no plane”.
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I didn't say this particular flight was canceled due to the grounding, but when you have a couple dozen planes grounded it's not easy to resolve issues that come up. American (and United, and Southwest) has fewer than 0 spare planes, they can't just beam an extra one over like Delta did.
 
Last time I flew American they cancelled my connecting flight, and didn't bother notifying me until I got to the gate. Instead of getting to spend an extra day in the Caribbean and putting me on the next flight out (there was room on it) they thought I would enjoy sitting in a hub airport for a ridiculous amount of time.
 
Years ago I was bumped from a flight in Costa Rica. I think it was Continental.

American Airlines saw to it that I was put on their flight so I could make it back to work on time even though they had no obligation to do so. Even put me in a first class seat.
 
Every airline has their good and bad days, but in my experience Delta is always a class act even when things go south
 
I'm 54 years old and have made a lot of flights in my lifetime. Only one horrible experience by an airline, and it happened to be Delta. So bad that even ten years later I still keep hoping they go under.
 
Gerhardt said:
I'm 54 years old and have made a lot of flights in my lifetime. Only one horrible experience by an airline, and it happened to be Delta. So bad that even ten years later I still keep hoping they go under.
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My poor experiences with AA (or any airline) generally haven't been "horrible". However, AA has lost my baggage twice out of the dozen times I've ever flown them (once on a direct flight from TUL to DFW). They also never fail to be delayed by at least 45 minutes or more, as well as having cancelled flights or delayed them by 3+ hours after it was time to start boarding the aircraft. I also seem to end up with FAs who's attitudes seem like they'd rather be elsewhere, and I don't even need anything from them. My experience is the SWA/UA has been on-schedule almost every time. Even in the instances when we push back 10-15 late, we end up on-time at the destination.

So, I just don't care for AA, even though I've never had a "horrible" experience like being stranded somewhere or bumped from a flight.
 
Gerhardt said:
I'm 54 years old and have made a lot of flights in my lifetime. Only one horrible experience by an airline, and it happened to be Delta. So bad that even ten years later I still keep hoping they go under.
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..and sadly as most marketing people know, all it takes is one bad experience to make the person not want to come back. You can eat at a restaurant a dozen times, but get sick once, you probably won't eat there again. Totally understandable, and just goes to show the oft-losing battle that large razor-thin margin corporations face.. and why so many simply give up.. "who cares if pax A is ****ed, there are millions of other people sorting Orbitz low to high on price, we'll make up for it elsewhere"

SoonerAviator said:
I just don't care for AA
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I've never had a positive experience with them.. in the half a dozen or so times I took them every experience was awful
-each flight delayed
-one flight lost luggage
-one flight was cancelled for a mechanical issue, wasn't rebooked, nothing, just refunded the card and was told flight was cancelled, you have to rebook
-the general "inflight" experience is generally dismal.. you feel like you're on a bus, and the planes seem very run down; I sat by the overwing emergency exit on one of their birds once and the door whistled the whole time and developed a legitimate 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch layer of frost all around the seam.. needless to say it was a very cold seat!

Compare that to Delta, and I've only had positive experiences, even when we taxied back to the gate in our MD-80 for a bad nose gear they brought in free pizza, free drinks, gave everyone miles and a meal voucher, and when we were back on our flight 4 hrs later they offered free booze to people and comp'd the WiFi... they worked very hard to make right what went wrong, and I appreciated that

On United, I've never had a "bad" experience, but I've also never been wow'd.. and their corporate policy after Smisek just seems anti-passenger. Their CEO recently basically said there's no sense in trying to make customers happy because the air travel experience sucks anyway... so the best they can do is try and get you to your destination on time with luggage. That's kind of a lousy attitude to have an unfortunately if that's how the CEO sees customers that "they're miserable anyway, why try and make them happy, just get them where they're trying to go" that trickles down through the organization. Never take a customer for granted, as Gerhardt demonstrated up top, DL lost a customer for life.. and AA lost me for life
 
Shoot, I take delays and lost luggage with a grain of salt, as something that's just going to happen occasionally.

My beef: My wife and 2 kids in line, only 1 check-in person at the counter and she' talking with the customer in front of us. After half an hour I walk up and start to explain that time is a factor. "Sir, you need to get back in line. I'll be with you when we're done here." It turns out that the guy in front of us was just upset about his frequent flier miles not being credited to his account right. By the time they were done it was 29 minutes prior to our flight leaving...their cutoff is 30 minutes. It cost us several hundred dollars to re-book for the next flight out in six hours.

We're heading to Nassau next month and Delta is, by far, the least expensive airline. Not going to happen with Delta.
 
Gerhardt said:
It turns out that the guy in front of us was just upset about his frequent flier miles not being credited to his account right. By the time they were done it was 29 minutes prior to our flight leaving...their cutoff is 30 minutes. It cost us several hundred dollars to re-book for the next flight out in six hours.
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that's just stupid, the gate agent can't do much about frequent flyer mile crediting, you typically have to call the number and give them the ticket number.. that was a very poor move on the gate agent's part

Gate agents in general I find to be the least impressive part of the flight experience. Flight attendants and everything else seem on point, but gate agents not so much.. granted they probably deal with a lot of abrasive behavior throughout the day
 
Gerhardt said:
Shoot, I take delays and lost luggage with a grain of salt, as something that's just going to happen occasionally.
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Oh I get that, and certainly understand on a tight layover that sometimes the baggage can't get across the airport in 20 minutes. However, I fly UA or SWA at least once a month, sometimes more. I have been flying with roughly the same frequency for 8+ years at my current job. I've never had my baggage lost in what has to be over 250 segments. The one time my baggage didn't make it with me, was my fault, as I arrived at the airport late and ran to my gate. Luckily it was a flight from TUL to DAL (they run a couple flights per day) and my luggage arrived at my hotel later that evening.

AA has managed to do it twice, which works out to something like a 15% failure rate. I may have just gotten unlucky, statistically, and wouldn't have another baggage issue for years. However, given my other poor experiences with them, I'm not willing to chance it unless I'm forced!
 
Tantalum said:
. . . On United, I've never had a "bad" experience, but I've also never been wow'd.. and their corporate policy after Smisek just seems anti-passenger. Their CEO recently basically said there's no sense in trying to make customers happy because the air travel experience sucks anyway... so the best they can do is try and get you to your destination on time with luggage. That's kind of a lousy attitude to have an unfortunately if that's how the CEO sees customers that "they're miserable anyway, why try and make them happy, just get them where they're trying to go" that trickles down through the organization. Never take a customer for granted, as Gerhardt demonstrated up top, DL lost a customer for life.. and AA lost me for life
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I get that. As far as price elasticity, 99% of my airline travel is for corporate business. I really don't pay an enormous amount of attention to the ticket price unless there's a huge swing ($250+) for the same fare. I shop based off of schedule and destination. Often enough, UA is the only game in town (fly into DIK). Flying in/out of Tulsa also limits my airline availability as well, since it's not a hub for anyone other than AA for maintenance. If I flew to the East coast a bit more, Delta would probably move up my list, but ATL isn't the most fun of airports as a traveler which I'd inevitably have to go through.
 
dmspilot said:
I didn't say this particular flight was canceled due to the grounding, but when you have a couple dozen planes grounded it's not easy to resolve issues that come up. American (and United, and Southwest) has fewer than 0 spare planes, they can't just beam an extra one over like Delta did.
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Thanks for making the connection. It still makes them look bad, and makes Delta look good.
 
Tantalum said:
On United, I've never had a "bad" experience, but I've also never been wow'd.. and their corporate policy after Smisek just seems anti-passenger. Their CEO recently basically said there's no sense in trying to make customers happy because the air travel experience sucks anyway... so the best they can do is try and get you to your destination on time with luggage.
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Smisek just sucked. "Changes you will like". I never liked any of them. And I've got over 1 1/3 million miles riding on UA. Didn't bother me at all when he left. Oscar isn't any better, I'm convinced that the airlines are all in a race to the bottom with them frequent "flier" (should be "rider") programs.

However, I still ride UA. Delta has NEVER had adequate legroom for me in coach, starting with the first time I rode them in 1976 through the last time (can't remember when that was). AA isn't any better. E+ seating as a minimum on UA. I've seen how people are crammed into the seats way in the back, and I wouldn't want to ride there, either. Alaska Airlines is OK, even in the "cheap" seats.

UA has been pretty good with bags. One of the few times I've arrived at a destination without my bag, it was their fault, however. Arrived in Dresden on LH, no bag. My wife's bag was there. Kept checking with LH as we drove to Prague, Budapest and Vienna. No bag. Got back to Dresden for a week at a symposium, no bag. Bought clothes in Prague and Budapest, but still had to go to an event as Past President of the IEEE EMC Society in something other than a coat and tie where that was really needed. Got a text from LH while we were in the air between FRA and SFO (which I got after landing at SFO) saying they had found the bag and would deliver it to our house the next day. Where was it? UA hadn't loaded it on our originating flight and it never left SEA. Made unpacking easy, everything was clean and folded. Unfortunately, as LH was the last leg on the trip to Dresden from Frankfurt, they wound up paying for the clothes I bought. Oh well...
 
Ghery said:
Smisek just sucked. "Changes you will like". I never liked any of them. And I've got over 1 1/3 million miles riding on UA. Didn't bother me at all when he left. Oscar isn't any better, I'm convinced that the airlines are all in a race to the bottom with them frequent "flier" (should be "rider") programs.

However, I still ride UA. Delta has NEVER had adequate legroom for me in coach, starting with the first time I rode them in 1976 through the last time (can't remember when that was). AA isn't any better. E+ seating as a minimum on UA. I've seen how people are crammed into the seats way in the back, and I wouldn't want to ride there, either. Alaska Airlines is OK, even in the "cheap" seats.

UA has been pretty good with bags. One of the few times I've arrived at a destination without my bag, it was their fault, however. Arrived in Dresden on LH, no bag. My wife's bag was there. Kept checking with LH as we drove to Prague, Budapest and Vienna. No bag. Got back to Dresden for a week at a symposium, no bag. Bought clothes in Prague and Budapest, but still had to go to an event as Past President of the IEEE EMC Society in something other than a coat and tie where that was really needed. Got a text from LH while we were in the air between FRA and SFO (which I got after landing at SFO) saying they had found the bag and would deliver it to our house the next day. Where was it? UA hadn't loaded it on our originating flight and it never left SEA. Made unpacking easy, everything was clean and folded. Unfortunately, as LH was the last leg on the trip to Dresden from Frankfurt, they wound up paying for the clothes I bought. Oh well...
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That's really the best benefit of achieving upper status levels with UA is that I get bumped to E+ 90% of the time being Gold or higher. Silver was probably 50% of the time.
 
SoonerAviator said:
That's really the best benefit of achieving upper status levels with UA is that I get bumped to E+ 90% of the time being Gold or higher. Silver was probably 50% of the time.
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That's the benefit of being a million miler with UA. Premier Gold for life (at a minimum), even if I don't ride them often enough to qualify in the future. And they status match my wife. She really liked that the two years I was a 1K. :D
 
When I was traveling for work frequently years ago, I was often on America West. I never had a single round trip without at least one delay or cancellation. It's nice to see that American is still carrying that level of service after all the acquisitions.

Also, the less said about the American 'Remote Terminal' at LAX, the better.
 
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