Has anyone had a problem with an airline and needed to contact them about it?? What did you do, and did you get any results??

DD and I recently flew on Delta. I booked my flight first, then a few days later, I tried to get DD on the same flights as me. WEll, when I looked on line at the seating, there was nothing near me, so I called the airline reservations directly, and the woman there said, "no problem, I can put you in 22E and her in 22F, then, on the return I can put you in such and such (together)" Ok, great, then I continued on to book her flight on line. When we got to the airport, I was told "you're not sitting together on your next flight you know" I was like, HUH???? And, of course she couldn't do anything about it, I needed to get it fixed at the next airport. I also called the Delta reservations number, and got a woman who told me it would be fixed at the next airport. When I got to the next airport I was told that the flight was booked solid, and they had a change of equipment (BS) and hence the seat change. It wasn't really a seat change, I had the original seat I had when I made my reservation, not the one the lady said I would have when I booked DD's flight. Hope that made sense.


I had other problems before I booked my flight,too, and then when I got to the airport, I noticed they rubbed 3 edges on my luggage wheel, so it doesn't roll smoothly.

Any suggestions on how to get results and some customer service???

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

In this situation I would type up an articulate letter and send it addressed directly to the CEO's office. They will pass it along to the proper people who will maybe try harder to resolve it as possible.

In this sitution I would say I was disappointed and Customer Service should not make a commitment they could not honor.

I would say it was a major inconvenience as you expected to have the time to socialize with each other.
I would say that in the future I would like to be assured this will happen again. And I would ask what they were willing to do to compensate me for my inconvenience.

Sometimes I email companies and follow up with a mailed letter. Sometimes a phone call will settle it. It really depends on the company.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

What is it specifically that you want?

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Lyn Clarke

Did everything else go okay with the flight, was the problem with not sitting by your husband the only issue? The reason I ask is that we have a flight booked with Delta for a vacaton in April and we booked it back in Novemeber. I am starting to get nervous because they have changed the actual flight twice and then they changed the flight time, at least three times. There will be 11 of us traveling and we had them booked together so we would all be traveling together. With all the changes they keep making I am worried we might not end up having it work out as planned. The reason we booked so early was to avoid problems, instead it seems to have created them.

allinaugust - I more than understand your frustration. I traveled with my mom and my DD, who was 5 months old at the time, on Northwest Airlines and we took the time to write them a letter and mail it to them regarding the many, many problems we had with a flight we took in January (very, very late flights - missed connection - stranded at connecting airport for 6 1/2 hours and would not give us food or drink vouchers - rude, rude employees - extremely poor customer service at terminals and on flights - damaged stroller, etc., etc.). After getting to our connecting airport, we were told that if we ran to our connecting flight gate that we could probably make our flight (even though we were 45-50 minutes late). When we got to the next gate, we were treated so rudely and asked why in the world we would think the plane would still be there. After standing in line for over an hour waiting to rebook our flights, we were told we could do the same thing over their service phones since the line was not moving at all. Then we found out that we had already been rebooked on a flight, but that it had departed 10 minutes earlier. How were we supposed to know this? We ended up having to rent a car when we got to our destination because my aunt, who was supposed to pick us up, couldn't go back to the airport again because she was at my grandmother's 80th birthday party (which is the reason we were traveling and we missed it). By the time we got to our destination I was out of bottles and formula for my DD and ended up using the last diaper in her diaper bag. I couldn't have taken more formula and bottles if I had wanted too because of the stringent FAA security guidelines. They looked at my ticket (flight and connection times) and told me that they would have to determine the appropriate amount of bottles I could take for my daughter?!?!?!?

FYI, there were several other things that went wrong that I didn't even touch on in this post.

Northwest finally replied with a letter to us basically saying sorry you had some problems, but it’s not the fault of our wonderful employees, and trust us – everything that happened to you is an exception, not the rule and you’ll see as soon as you are foolish enough to waste your money and fly with us again.

I am so furious right now. We didn't ask for, nor were we expecting free airfare. We just wanted a sincere apology and couldn’t even get that. All we got were excuses in a lousy form letter where they defended their employees and you could tell that they had just inserted prewritten paragraphs for certain complaints. I would rather pay more money to fly another airline than ever fly Northwest again! If I can't get a decent flight on another airline out of the town I live in, which is very common, I would rather drive 2 1/2 hours to an airport in another city just so I don't have to give another penny to Northwest Airlines.

My mom and I are planning on writing another letter to respond to the one that we received from them. The first letter we sent to the attention of the Director of Customer Care & Refunds. The next letter will be going to either the Senior VP of Customer Service & Ground Operations, or the President & CEO. Just for fun, maybe we'll copy both of them on it.

Anyway, I'm sorry that you had problems too. I would suggest writing a letter to the VP or Director or Delta's customer relations department, although it hasn't done me any good (but I'm not done yet).

Hi....sorry to hear about your problems with the seating on your flight. I work for Delta Airlines and another airline so maybe I can be of some help. Yes, everyone that you spoke to in the airport was correct that they cannot/suppose to change the flights until you get into that airport you are having a seating problem with. It is likely they did in fact have an equipment change and you still got your original seat. When the airlines do have an unexpected equipment change they try to accommodate peoples seating back to the original request. Someone personally sits there and reenters everything. Honestly it does NO good to call the customer service number when at another airport to help you out. The reason is that the message or computers don't always sync up in time..unless you are someone important VIP ect.... Even though you have a "reservation" on seats.....it does not mean you will get them. They are really a "request" and they can be changed at anytime by the airline.

If you are ever in the same situation here is a tip.
**You can always ask the "current" airport if they can change your seat for another. (sometimes you will find a sweet lady that will do it for you even though they are not supposed to. I do it to help people all the time just depends on the attitude they gave....if they are crappy with me then I don't bother)
** You can always ask the flight attendant/purser to change your seats on board
**remember the nicer you are the more likely they are to work with you. Your reservation is a request the local airport can change them if they have to.

About your luggage......
wheels, handles, and straps are not covered in any airline.

The above are to be said normal wear and tear. I went to PA 2 years ago and had bought a new piece of luggage while there to get everything back and when the bag came off the carousel. One of the wheels had popped off.

You hand your bags over at the airport and then they travel down a belt so TSA can check them or you hand them over at the side of the aircraft to be placed in the belly. These bags get thrown around, dropped, and banged up even while in the cargo can. Really it is just what happens at the airport. You cannot hand them a nice piece of luggage and expect to get it back that way. I started buying cheap bags just for this reason. I mean the belts are nasty people are doing there jobs. They really don't "lightly place" all the bags into the cargo can and if they were eggs. LOL They toss them in there. Which is only common sense.

Hth even though it is long

Tracy

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Give me the wisdom and grace to understand

Tracy S
Mommy to 5 little girls
Victoria
Alyssa
Samantha & Selena
Malaya
Tracy_s5girls@yahoo.com

Unfortunately, I think you are probably out of luck. This sort of thing happens all the time. Even if you choose seats together, they can be changed at any time. I think you do have better luck if you make your reservations at the same time, but that's not always the case either.

One time when I was flying alone with my DS (he was 2 at the time), we were NOT seated together. Now, granted, it was a last minute flight for a funeral. The airline told me we had to try to switch seats with another passenger once we got on the plane. I told the flight attendants when we got on the plane that we weren't seated together thinking they could help me -- they were polite but said *I* would have to ask people. Well, I asked everyone seated around me, but no one would switch with us. I ended up having to buckle my DS in his seat and walk away before someone finally agreed to switch seats -- unbelievable. I guess it finally dawned on them that it would be better to change seats, than sit next to an unattended 2 year old for two hours.

As far as luggage, sometimes the airline will agree to pay to have your bag repaired. It depends on the damage (some things are excluded). My parents have done this a few times and let me tell you it is a real PITA since you have to take or mail your bag to one of the airline designated repair places at your own cost.

I wasn't seated next to my daughter,when I was assured I would be. That is the main reason I went ahead and booked her flight. She's only 11, and there was no way I would fly without her next to me, or directly in front of me. Especially not after hearing about that perv. they arrested for groping some girl on a flight.

I think I'm just overall disgusted with the whole situation of the booking, flying, the damage to my luggage, lack of food, you name it!!!

Thanks for the replies.

BTW, I'm sure your flight will go fine, since you booked everything together. They told me in Atlanta that was part of the problem. I still think it's BS, and doubt they will even care when I do send them a letter. We flew Delta from Hawaii one time, with a cat in tow. Well, before we even got our tickets, we made sure our cat could fly in the cabin with us. We went to the airport and spoke to the girl at the counter to get the measurements for a carrier to be in the cabin. We were well within those sizes. Well, the night we got to the airport, we were told "no go" on our carrier, the cat would have to fly in the cargo area, or whatever. We were not happy, and I let them know about them. Then, lo and behold, the girl says "oh, you can purchase a carrier here for $50". The carrier was no kidding, about the size of a small tackle box. Our cat was CRAMMED in that thing. I was so mad. I called Delta when we got to our final destination and got settled. They did reimburse me the $50 for the carrier, but, not without a fight.

Thanks again for all the replies.

I think airline travel in general has just gotten terrible!!

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

Don't bother writing Delta. They won't care. Neither will 9 out of 10 airlines out there. I travel all the time for work and they don't care about their frequent flyers and care less about people who buy one or two tickets every few years. Travel industry is what it is.

I would suggest if you want travel agent service that you use a travel agent, or be your own by checking your flight information every few days on delta.com. You can check your seats and your flt times. I have a non-busness flight booked with my husband at the end of April. In the past 10 days the departure time has changed THREE times and with one of those was an equipment change which meant we lost our seat assignments. Even though I'm signed up to get email notifications of changes, I still haven't been notified by Delta that my flight is now leaving an entire hour earlier.

You can send a letter to the CEO and all you'll get back is a canned letter that will just make you angrier!

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oupiglet...addicted to free stuff!

I totally totally agree. Your best bet in the future is to constantly check your flights online. Check times, check seats, you MAY be able to call after you book your flights and tell them that two people who booked separately are actually travelling together. They MAY make a note in your record. But either get a travel agent who will do it for you (and they charge nowadays) or do it yourself.