Airlines Suck: Delta Customer Service misbooks flight and lies, causing woman to miss her brother's funeral

Airlines suck. If they’re not smashing guitars and losing ten year-olds they’re making your lives hell. I’ve only had experience with Air Canada and Porter Air, Air Canada being comparable to a root canal performed by a blind-deaf man with no fine motor skills. This story however cropped up in relation to Delta Airlines and how they single handedly made a woman miss her only sibling’s funeral.

                To summarize, the woman’s only brother died and while trying to book the flight to the funeral they were met with the following challenges:

·         No bereavement rate for their flight (totaling $821.00 per person)

·         Flight rate increasing to $1,396.00 in the time it took to speak with the first agent’s supervisor while being on hold the entire time

·         Being asked to change the date of the funeral

·         Paying $1,642.00 for flights to find out that they had been actually booked on the flight that left 4 hours before they got to the airport

·         Being directed to the Customer Call Centre, which was closed after being told they couldn’t get on their original flight

·         Speaking to the head supervisor after the last flight to their destination had left only to be told that they had turned down two first-class seats that had remained empty upon takeoff by the second agent.

·         Being told that it was their word against the other agent’s, who had inputted that that offer had been made to them.

               The couple was eventually given their money back and two $300.00 vouchers to fly Delta but had missed all of the flights and missed the funeral.

                This story hasn’t gone viral yet, but much like what happened with Progressive Insurance, more and more people are turning to the web and social media/ blogging to hold companies and corporations accountable for mistakes. From a communications perspective, I think that it’s interesting the relationship with company accountability and blogging. If you have the ability to type and get your story out there, there are literally millions of people who can make sure that it’s read and passed around.

                As a human being I think that the fact we still have that level of service is ridiculous. People are so quick to look at opportunities to make money, rather than putting people first in any position. It’s the same thing in person, you smile at someone on the street and there more than likely to tell you where to go and how to get there.

 

All information came from the blog post: The Delta Customer Service Nightmare That Made MY Mother Miss her Brother’s Funeral by Jessica Liebman

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-delta-customer-service-nightmare-that-made-my-mother-miss-her-brothers-funeral-2012-8