Quick Delta Story
The other day I had a flight and got to the airport in plenty of time. I boarded the plane for a 3:30 scheduled departure. About 10 minutes before we were scheduled to leave the pilot came on and said that an inspection of the plane found that it was hit by lightening and that while not uncommon, this particular hit made a bigger mark than usual. Delta procedure called for a methodical inspection which is a good thing, so he said that the wait would probably be about an hour. Since I had a book to read and they turned on the TVs on the plane, I sat back and relaxed. About 30 minutes later he came on and said they were going to cancel the flight and we all had to get off.
At this point in my story most of the 3 faithful readers of my blog would expect a cynical tale of terrible customer service and horrid examples of why Delta is the devil. But not this time.
I was with a colleague and as we both got off with the 200+ other passengers we heard a gate agent come over the PA in the terminal and told all of us to see a gate agent (at this point about 50 people deep for one person) or to go to a section with a bank of phones and call reservations (about 100 people deep). Always trying to find a shortcut, I just called Delta directly from a pay phone. The phone person said that myself and my colleague were already rebooked on the 7PM flight and that we were all set. Nice. Taking care of us. Good.
We had to kill a couple of hours and the place was a zoo. Not wanting to sit in the terminal and try to find some place to plug our laptops into, I decided to try the Delta Crown Room. I do not have a pass (costs a few hundred dollars) and was not with someone who is a member (then I get in for free). But I thought I would try. After all, I was well dressed and only wanted the quiet work space, not to drink and cause trouble, like I usually do. So we waited in line and when it was our turn to talk to the receptionist person in the Crown Room I walked up and in a very quiet voice said “Our flight was cancelled and we have to kill a couple of hours, do you mind if we work in here for a while?”. The women, also in a quiet tone, said “No problem, go on in, just don’t tell anybody.” Bless this Delta rep for breaking the rules to make me, a very difficult person to please, happy.
So we worked in there, went to the Summer Shack restaurant for dinner and got ignored for a while and finally left, then got on our flight. The Summer Shack story is almost too insignificant to tell. Short version – we sat down and were ignored for about 7 or 10 minutes. While being ignored, another person sat down next to us, a waitress came by, took his drink order, and brought it to him, and we had not even seen a person yet. I got up to ask the hostess to send someone over to us, she turned and said something to another waitress who asked ME what section I was in, like I would somehow know, then I went back to the table to continue being ignored for another 5 or so minutes. At that point we just gave up and left. Who cares, there are 10 other places to get something to eat.
Anyway, while in the Crown Room another Delta person moved our seats on the next flight to good seats in the exit row and gave us meal vouchers. Another example of doing more than was expected and left me feeling good.
We got on our flight, had an uneventful time, then made it to the hotel in Orlando.