The worst airline experience I've ever had and I've flown many, including Frontier and Spirit.
My brother and I planned a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Ireland with our two sons and our 80-year-old father. We booked our airfare, all of our accommodations and rental car six months in advance. Over the following months, Delta changed our itinerary five times before settling on a schedule. We were supposed to leave Seattle at 5:30 a.m. on July 7 and arrive in Shannon, Ireland, at 11:10 a.m. on July 8.
The morning of our departure, we were packed and ready to head to the airport when we received a notification from Delta that our flight had been canceled due to "inclement weather." Meanwhile, other airlines continued operating flights in and out of Seattle without issue.
My brother spent hours on the phone with Delta agents who offered excuses and even suggested canceling our trip altogether and accepting a refund, leaving us to pay thousands more to book last-minute flights ourselves. Eventually, Delta rebooked us for the following day.
That one-day delay cost us an entire day of our vacation, a night's worth of non-refundable accommodations, our first day's rental car reservation, and cancellation fees for our airport transportation. Delta did not reimburse any of those expenses. Instead, they gave each of us a $100 voucher toward future airfare. The vouchers couldn't be combined and couldn't be used for baggage fees or onboard purchases, making them worthless to us.
Despite the rocky start, we had an incredible time in Ireland.
Then came the trip home.
At 11:00 p.m. on our final night, after we had packed and were ready to fly home the next morning, Delta notified us that our return flight had been canceled.
We had nowhere to stay after checking out the next morning. Our rental car had to be returned. Four of us were scheduled to return to work the following day. My brother had already used all of his vacation time. Most importantly, our 80-year-old father didn't have enough heart medication for an extended stay.
I immediately messaged Delta. After hours of back-and-forth, an agent found seats for us on Aer Lingus and Alaska Airlines departing around the same time as our original flight. The reservation never appeared in the Delta app, but the agent assured me we were confirmed and would get boarding passes at the Aer Lingus counter.
The next morning, after little sleep, we headed to the airport. We intended to arrive three hours early but encountered several delays. Before returning our rental car, we stopped to fill the tank. Exhausted, stressed, and rushing after spending most of the night pleading with Delta, we accidentally filled our gasoline vehicle with diesel.
We didn't realize our mistake until the car began jerking and smoking just a few hundred meters from the rental return.
That error will likely cost us thousands of dollars.
Then things got even worse.
When we arrived at the Aer Lingus counter, we were told they had absolutely no record of our reservation. The flight was completely full. The Delta agent had lied, leaving five stranded passengers at the airport with no confirmed way home.
By this point, we were exhausted, frustrated, anxious, homesick, and overwhelmed.
Thankfully, EU passenger protection laws are stronger than those in the US and we were eventually rebooked on another airline, and Delta covered a hotel, transportation, and meals. While I appreciate that those legal obligations were honored, they barely scratched the surface of the financial losses and stress these cancellations caused.
When finally boarded a flight home, the constant uncertainty, lack of sleep, financial strain, and stress had taken their toll. My family who had spent two wonderful weeks together were at each other's throats. A trip that should have ended with great memories instead ended in fighting. We are now not speaking to one another.
Had Delta operated the flights it sold us--or at least handled the disruptions competently--we wouldn't have lost a full day of our vacation, forfeited non-refundable reservations, missed work, paid cancellation fees, or made an expensive mistake with our rental car after staying awake into the early morning trying to fix Delta's mistakes.
This wasn't just bad luck, it was a cascading series of failures made worse by poor communication and inadequate customer service.
In the end, Delta's operational failures turned what should have been an unforgettable family vacation into one of the most stressful travel experiences we've ever had, costing us far more than we can afford.
Delta is now a credit card company that happens to operate an airline. Customer service is secondary to selling financial products.
My family has agreed on one thing: after this experience, we will never choose to fly Delta again. read more