I Hate Delta Airlines

[ReallyDirtyThirty]

As the thread states, Delta is terrible. I have to travel a lot for my job and more often than not, I'm on Delta. Usually they're ok, but for the last three or four months they always seem to butt ram with these flights. I'm going to Madison today and was supposed to connect in Detroit and get to Madison at 12:20PM. Now they delayed my inbound to Detroit, I'll miss my connection by about an hour and end up having to wait at DTW until 5:00PM to get there. The time before that they cancelled my ATL flight and I had to go to Tampa via LGA. Been delayed so many other times. It just seems like they're getting so much worse. If anyone is flying through DTW today, I'll most likely be at the Irish Pub near gate B7 pounding Harp Lagers. Stop on by...

/rant

[InuFaye]

I booked Delta for my trip to Seattle on labor day weekend.
THEY ALREADY DELAYED MY FLIGHT HOME.

[F34R]

I flew with them to FL last year, no issues going. Coming home they overbooked an already booked flight and I gave up my seat. I got 600.00 in a flight voucher though =) Going back to FL on 6/27 on their dime. This will be my 3rd flight ever in my life so not much input from me. But I agree that they layover and overbook a ton. I had to wait 5 hours so I had plenty of time to watch the time/flights.

[spike68]

I dont travel by plane very often, but the one time I took my dad's advice, I had an awful experience. I most often fly Air Trans since theyre usually the cheapest for me. But this time my dad said I should do Delta since he travels with them quite often.
The booking process was smooth and easy, but when I jumped on my flight there ended up being big delays when we hit the runway. First off, it had snowed the night before, which isnt common in Atlanta, so they come off the runway and decided to de-ice the wings which took about an hour anda half, then after getting on the runway for the second time, they came back again. This time they said it was a computer issue which probably took about an other hour. On top of all that I got sick the night before which wasint making it any nicer to sit though. I also had a very impatient qoman sitting next to me who continuously called her boyfriend to compain how horrible the wait was. She was also getting so angry she began tearing pages out of the magazines that were on the plane. Why? I have no idea, but it was weird.
So after a bunch of time waiting on that plane while they get everything sorted, the whole actual flight ended taking less time then we actually waited. (ATL to Chicago. About hour and a half.)

I dont think I will ever fly delta again. I kind of feel like the issues they delt with while we waited could have been delt with before everyone got on the plane. Maybe not the computer thing, but at least the de icing of the wings, which took the majorty of the wait.

Plus, I dont like pretzels :D

[Desaevious]

Yeah I hear their Achilles heel is connecting flights. I've only connected with them once but it was fine, otherwise I use them for straight shot flights and have no problems.

[Ryan Stewart]

Yeah I hear their Achilles heel is connecting flights. I've only connected with them once but it was fine, otherwise I use them for straight shot flights and have no problems.

That is it. They overload the system at hubs so when shit goes wrong with connections its bad. Living in Atlanta its never that bad because you get a direct everywhere.

[thearkitekt]

Ok lets throw some hard numbers at your claim of delta "always being late"

Looking at Delta all together, which i may remind you includes commuter carries such as sky west, and atlantic southeast inc, from the DTW airport the numbers are as follows.

6/1/2011 - Today

Total Departures:52,894
% on time: 66.6%
% within 15 min: 85.3%
% over 15 min: 14.7%
% cancelled: .7%
% diverted: .2%

so basically less then 1% of flights don't make it where they're going.

Now it seems from the numbers that Atlantic Southeast, and sky west are really your guilty party here, causing most of the delays and cancellations. now from a customer standpoint i realize you probably don't care, as they all have delta painted not the tail. so i won't get into any hard numbers there.

Now looking at DTW data as a whole, looks like AirTran is currently the best for on time departures, at 80.1%. However, they only have 1,644 flights to keep track of, a far cry of deltas 52, 894. The worst offender of being late from DTW during this same period is Southwest airlines, coming in at 52.4% on time, with 4,876 total departures.

since you didn't mention your final destination, and what routing you have i couldn't really track historical numbers as far as on time vs late for that route specifically. but i think you get the idea here. are there delays in aviation? yes. are they controllable? sometimes. will it happen on ANY airline? yes.

[nbio]

Maybe not the computer thing, but at least the de icing of the wings, which took the majorty of the wait.

Plus, I dont like pretzels :D

Coming from a guy that deices airplanes, there is a specific holdover time that is observed while it is still precipitating. Usually there would not be enough time to deice, taxi to a gate, pushback & taxi to the active in the holdover period. This is why they load everything up, head to the deice pad, and then immediately taxi to depart as soon as possible.

Don't bitch about deicing, even a little frost can be seriously detrimental.

[SGT4677]

Awww,dont hate us,were really trying to get you there.Its not like you just get in the car and go with a check light on,or drive into the rainstorm with bad wipers.We dont do that in aircraft.
I know its frustrating sometimes since its out of your control,I've been there a few times.I'd rather sit there for a while than fly on something thats not ready to go and I'm not going to send you up in a broken jet.

[spike68]

Coming from a guy that deices airplanes, there is a specific holdover time that is observed while it is still precipitating. Usually there would not be enough time to deice, taxi to a gate, pushback & taxi to the active in the holdover period. This is why they load everything up, head to the deice pad, and then immediately taxi to depart as soon as possible.

Don't bitch about deicing, even a little frost can be seriously detrimental.

Its not the deicing itself that im upset about, its just the wait. It dosent make sence to me that they go line up on the runway, then come back to deice. Heck yeah im glad they deiced it. I get on planes trusting the company I board with will get me where i need to go safely and not falling from the sky.
Its just my reccomendation that the deicing could have taken place before the boarding, at most went straight to deicing rather than heading to the runway, then coming back, for the sake of the passengers. especially when it was snow form the night before. It just seems inefficient.
I dont know much about how they organize things at an airport, but from someone who is just a passenger, it dosent make sence.


Thanks for being the guy who gives passengers piece of mind when flying.

[xAZxE30x]

I just flew Delta to Barcelona.. was pretty pleased with the flight actually.. no cancellations or anything weird. seats were a bit small but other than that, no complaints! Normally fly southwest though

[b*saint]

If you're talking real life average, United has always been #1 for me except I quit traveling my ass off once they merged with Continental so now I dont know how great they are anymore.

For me the worse was Us Airways

[VANOS714]

I hear nothing but complaints about Delta airlines.

[mrsleeve]

Delta fucked me outta day at home last xmass, but they did take very good care of me and put me up in a very nice hotel and paid for all of my inconveniences and got me upgraded to the big seats in the front of the plane for the rest of my trip

[KenC]

United/Continental has the best mileage program if you fly a lot. Plus Star Alliance is the biggest group in the world.

Just got back from Thailand/Tokyo a few days ago. A friend redeemed a bunch of miles and flew us all first class there. Got drunk off of red wine, had a steak, and slept nearly the whole way. Made the 14.5hr SFO-HKG flight bearable.