delta. don't do it.

edited: 9.22.06
just don't. don't do it to yourself. read why.

back in mid-august i bought a ticket to go to portland, maine, off the coast of which my cousin and his wife live on this unspoiled paradise of the north called peaks island. the ticket was $142RT—pretty cheap. i got it through expedia and i was supposed to take off last friday 9.15 at 8.45pm. the flight was through delta, but the actual plane was operated by something called freedom airlines. i was trying to get out of brooklyn and up to maine pretty much all summer long, but because of work stuff and people flaking out i couldn't make it until just this past week. i was dying to get out of here.

i showed up to JFK at around 6.30pm. i took the L to broadway and made a surprisingly easy trip from the A to the airtrain. took about an hour and 15min total from the graham stop, and there was actually some pretty interesting stuff to look at along the way—bunch of huge and ancient cemetaries, some of them completely overgrown by weeds and trees; a ton of graffiti spots and a yard or two with probably about three decades worth of paint on the walls. the delta terminal was a shithole as soon as i walked in—there were 60 people wrapped around in a broken line that in some circuitous fashion led to the ticket counter. i went to the e-ticket checkin and punched in my confirmation number and got some message on the screen: IT IS TOO LATE TO CHECK-IN FOR THIS FLIGHT with another, smaller message that stated my flight left at 12.51am the PREVIOUS morning. obviously there was something fucked up here... i called the delta number and talked to the first of many people from bombay, india (i asked them). the flight was actually delayed until at least 1AM—which didn't work for me since the last ferry to peaks island was at 11.30pm. so i rebooked for the next flight for 1PM on saturday and went home. all around me there were other people whose flights had been cancelled or otherwise inordinately delayed.

saturday. i called delta and talked to bombay, india dude #2. took him like 10min to find my flight info and finally told me my flight was delayed til 1.50pm. i showed up at noon; the delta terminal looked a lot more orderly. i went to the e-ticket check-in. after finding out the flight was delayed to 2.45 i got another retarded message while trying to check in. i waited in line for the counter. i tried to check-in with this delta lady, but she said she couldn't find my flight, my information, and my confirmation number didn't exist. then these people from israel cut in my place in line and the delta lady stopped helping me. then later when she was finished with them, she gave me a boarding pass without a gate number on it. it was just some generic boarding pass to get me out of line. i went through security with no problems.

i got to gate 23 (the gate listed on the tv screens at the airport), and saw somewhere around 200 people crowded around the gate entrance with like three people working. this was the literal end of the airport—the corner where delta shoved all the angry, pissed-on and otherwise disgruntled customers and jerked them around for several hours while their desperate workers scrambled around to find the outgoing airplanes for all these people, whose annoyance was increasing exponentially and sweeping across newcomers to the gate. i had more than 2hrs to wait for my flight out, so i went to burger king, which was probably the worst place i could have gone to. i had these chicken things that i remembered were ok from the last time i ate there, which was around 10 years ago. now they are shaped like cut-out king's crowns and taste like dry newspaper. i went back to gate 23 and saw my flight was delayed again until 3.20pm. the crowd was getting restless.

gate 23 was the area where delta sent all its customers whose flights were delayed or cancelled the previous day (when i called they claimed there were weather problems, which was total bullshit because it had stopped raining in ny at around 4pm on friday). the three delta workers wouldn't even talk to us on the portland flight because our plane was not physically on the ground at JFK. in fact, they had no idea where the plane that was supposed to take us to maine was—as would become clear in the next few hours. they were trying to find the plane to boston. they announced the plane to boston was in the air somewhere and would be here soon. at 3.10pm the screen shifted to 4pm. at 3.50 they announced our plane was in manchester and was getting ready to take off and that we should be ready to leave at 4.30 (again, bullshit: it takes at least an hour to fly from manchester to JFK) and promised an update on the flight status by 4.15. at 4.50 we hadn't heard shit and the flight was now set for 5.20. at 5.30 they changed it to 6pm. at 6pm they announced our long-lost plane in manchester was still in manchester. bullshit. i had enough. the flight was being delayed indefinitely. i got the fuck out of there.

over the course of the day i was on the phone with a bunch of delta people from bombay, india. i talked to them about possible refunds and cancelling the ticket. apparently it was delta policy not to refund tickets until the flight has departed. another told me the only way to get a refund was to talk to someone at the counter. another told me i would not get a refund on anything. another told me i would get a small refund or a voucher for another flight on their shitty airline, and to use this voucer i'd have to give delta 50 bucks (this would later prove to be true). i went to the ticket lady back downstairs and explained what was up and that delta was fucking around and i wanted to cancel my flight and get a refund. "we don't have your money," she said. "expedia does."

i called expedia when i got outside. "we don't have your money," the lady said. "delta does." after about two hours of arguing with expedia and delta, this dude manuel at expedia tracked down some guy at delta named Ian Scott, who turned out to be another indian dude from bombay, india who offered me the voucher that i'd have to pay delta another 50 bucks to use. no thanks, i said. just give me my money back.

delta fucking blows. if there were an asshole company of the year award, they'd be in the top two. they don't have any infrastructure or organization and i'm pretty sure they will be filing for some sort of bankruptcy protection after losing about 1000 customers this past weekend in JFK alone. the upside to all of this is that branden (my cousin) and his wife (mary) bought me a ticket on Jet Blue for later that evening. Jet Blue is the polar opposite of the bullshit that was Delta. diametric opposite. as soon as i got into the jet blue terminal there was no stress. it was well-lit and clean. people were smiling. i had a beer and watched baseball while waiting for my flight, which left exactly on time and arrived in portland early. almost as an intentional "fuck-you" to delta. i got into portland at 10.20pm saturday, 24 hours late.