Ready, Fire, Aim! - Mihail's Public Blog: Death of customer service: Delta Airlines (Part 2)

By Mihail - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Business & Investing

Friday, March 20, 2009

Death of customer service: Delta Airlines (Part 2)

So what's with Delta selling you tickets without assigning you a seat number? Either Delta has a ticket to sell -- and a seat that goes with it -- or it doesn't. 

Does anyone understand why it is OK for an airline to inconvenience passengers (beyond making us fly them) by not letting passengers print a boarding pass at home (since there's no seat number for them) even 24 hours before their flight?

Instead, they make you print some sort of other document -- which says you have a confirmed reservation but no seat -- which you're then forced to take to the customer "service" desk at the airport (after getting there much earlier than one normally needs to). Invariably, one then has to deal with an unfriendly Delta customer service person who thinks they're doing you a favor -- instead of simply being able to walk thru security and to your gate if you're not checking bags and have already printed your boarding pass.

And, second, what's with all the seats Delta is saving for its most frequent fliers but still selling you a ticket and not letting you actually pick a seat. Again, either you're being sold a ticket and a seat that accompanies it or you're not. Or you're being asked to buy a standby ticket. But to sell you a confirmed ticket without a confirmed seat that goes with it should be against the law. Delta seems to think it can have it both ways while forcing passengers to waste their time. Enough already.

As I've said before, maybe Skywest should take over all of Delta's operation. The Delta service on the small planes run by Skywest is always excellent.

Previous: Death of customer service: Delta Airlines - New Entries - Next: Death of Customer Service: Delta Airlines to Silver Medallion: Screw You

Headlines (What is this?)