The following is an incident that my family endured with Delta flight 8050 bound for Cancun, Mexico via Mexico City on November 23rd:
As is instructed by the airlines, my family of five, including three young children ages 9, 6, and 4, arrived at the airport over two hours early for our international Delta flight. More precisely, we arrived at the counter at 11:00pm, 2 hours and 10 minutes before the scheduled departure of Delta flight 8050. Despite being booked through Delta, this flight was being serviced by Aeromexico. The following is a description of the nightmare scenario we experienced in dealing with this Delta-booked flight.
(Time - 11:30) After waiting in line for approximately 30 minutes we reached the ticket counter. At this point we gave the agent our travel itinerary and US passports. He checked all our bags and we continued to wait for him to get our tickets in order.
(Time - 11:40) After approximately 10 minutes of being at the ticket counter, the agent called over another agent and proceeded to speak with this agent in Spanish. Despite the fact that we are Caucasian, we have a basic understanding with the Spanish language and could understand that he was explaining to the other agent that there was an issue with one of our tickets. At this point we asked if there “was a problem with our tickets.” He responded, “No, my supervisor just needs to check something.” He then asked us to step aside so he could check in other passengers while his supervisor checked the tickets. My wife then asked “Are we getting on the plane?” He responded “Yes.” We then said since there was no issue with us getting on the plane we would honor his request by continuing to wait and let others move ahead of us. Unbeknownst to us, and despite the fact that our flight was due to take off soon, the ticket counter was also about to close.
(Time - 11:55) After waiting another 15 minutes the ticket counter ticket agent supervisor, Walter (last name redacted), called us back up to the counter. He said that the system was not finding my wife’s ticket for the flight and that I had to decide which of the four members of my family were going to get on the flight. After a moment of disbelief I showed him my printed out itinerary to which he rudely replied that despite our itinerary Delta didn’t send Aeromexico the electronic ticket for my wife. Because of this error, he said she couldn’t get on the flight. I asked him if there was a seat for her on the plane. He said yes. I then requested for him to call Delta and work this out because this is an issue between Aeromexico and Delta. He replied “Sir, you need to take this issue up with Delta, we don’t do that.” I then asked if I could purchase a ticket for the flight at the counter so we could get on the plane as a family. Walter then replied that he could not sell me a ticket, only that we could leave one member of my family behind (a ridiculous offer seeing as we were heading to a foreign country for the first time with three young children!!!) After a few minutes of pleading with him to help us, and his total unwillingness to do so, I said that we would run down to the Delta ticket booth and get a copy of the ticket. He replied very rudely that the Aeromexico ticket booth was closing and he wouldn’t be there when we got back. My wife then reminded them that she asked over 15 minutes ago if we were all getting on the flight and that the answer was yes. We could have used our “please stand to the side while we help everyone else on the flight but not you!” to go to the Delta counter to get this issue sorted out in time for us to make the flight!! My wife, now in tears, decided to run from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 in hopes to get a Delta ticket agent to help.
(Time - 11:59 pm) My wife calls me from the Delta ticket counter. She said the Delta ticket agent said she had a confirmed ticket and asked that Walter hold the counter open for her to return. She then handed her cell phone to the Delta agent (we did not get his name) to speak with Walter, the Aeromexico supervisor. I asked Walter to take my phone but he refused saying they were closing and it didn’t matter. Finally, after I begged him to take the phone, he finally did, but then proceeded to argue with the Delta agent on the other side of the line. Delta was instructing Walter to allow my wife on the plane because they confirmed she had a ticket. Walter refused. Walter then hung up on the Delta agent and handed my phone back to me. I asked Walter to explain why, if Delta said we all had tickets and there was room for us all on the plane, we couldn’t board the plane? He never gave me an answer other than repeating the issue about his computer saying my wife didn’t have a ticket.
Meanwhile, back at the Delta booth, the agent there was insisting that Walter was “just lazy and doesn’t want to fix your ticket.” According to the Delta agent, Walter had the ability to fix the problem and it shouldn’t have been such a big issue. Again, not very helpful or professional on Delta’s end, but at least they recognized the incompetence of the Aeromexico supervisor! Delta printed out the ticket confirmation for my wife and instructed her run back to Aeromexico. She then called me in a frantic state begging me to not let Walter close the counter because she was running as fast as she could. I pleaded for Walter to stay and that she was bringing a ticket that confirmed her seat. At this point Walter said “I don’t have time for this” and walked out of the ticket counter and disappeared. My wife arrived seconds later and we ran to the original ticket agent, who was still there. We gave him the Delta confirmation ticket, but he responded that he couldn’t override what his supervisor said. Obviously both he and Walter could have helped, but they chose not to.
At this point it was past midnight and I finally gave up. I then asked for the remaining agent to give us a hotel room so we could return the next morning and try and get on a flight. To my utter amazement the agent said he was unable to do that because, once again, the issue was with Delta.
(Time - 12:15am) At this point two of my three kids were in hysterics because they were no longer going to Mexico and we were stranded at the airport. For the next hour and a half we waited for a ride home. During this time we were on the phone with a Delta agent on the national line trying to reschedule us on the next available flight. They told us the next available was on Sunday morning. My wife asked to not reschedule it, since that departure was not acceptable for our hotel accommodations.
(Time - 6:30am) I woke up after a short time sleeping and went to my computer to check our travel reservations and begin the cancellation of our first family vacation. In checking my email I was extremely surprised to see an update from Delta that our flight to Mexico had been changed and we were leaving on a flight that this same morning, flight 555 departure 9:00am. This was in less than three 3 hours and we still had to wake everyone up, get ready, pack the car, get a ride, drive to the airport, then check it! I immediately screamed for my wife to wake everyone up. We do not live close to the airport and we all scrambled as quickly as we could to get in the car and head to the airport. Luckily I woke up early that morning and happened to see that email or we would have missed that flight. We almost did anyway! A call would have gone a long way to making the morning MUCH less stressful.
While driving to the airport, I called a representative to confirm this reservation. I was told to get to the airport ASAP. He also told us that our return flight had been moved to a different flight one day earlier than originally scheduled. What? How can that be? Our vacation was now being cut short by two days. Why weren’t we called or somehow informed of these new arrangements?
(Time - 4:30) During our layover in Atlanta I was again dealing with a Delta agent. Since our return flight had also been cancelled and then rescheduled I now needed to extend our stay two days. This was not in our travel budget and the hotel rate was inflated due to the last-minute booking. My wife and are both working parents. We had to call our employers to request an additional day off from work. Our children would also be missing a day of school. One more hurdle for us to jump over. Just three more hurdles for us to jump over before even arriving at our destination!
(Return flight home)
These problems situation outlined above is appears not to be an isolated incident since on the way home our experience with the Delta-booked flight was, while we got on the flight, we almost did not despite getting to the airport over two hours before the flight. Something was wrong with the computer system and we had to wait in line at the ticket book for 2 hours and 15 minutes just to check in. Luckily Aeromexico held the plane for us, but I later found out several others stuck in line behind us were not so lucky. Regardless, those of us waiting in line were not kept informed about the issues going on at the check-in desk nor were we given instructions about what to do as our flight time came and went. Everyone was left to speak with the airline service agents on our own resulting in passengers getting different information than others, people attempting to cut in line, and a overall total fiasco. If there had just been an announcement to quell the panic it would have made the situation much less chaotic.
Overall, our experience with Delta was HORRIBLE. I have never been treated with such a lack of respect nor witnessed two airline partners working in such a dysfunctional manner. Clearly, your partner Aeromexico advocates poor customer service amongst their employees. I hope for Delta’s sake that they reevaluate this partnership. We certainly will not recommend that travelers use Delta when flying to Mexico as they may not realize that Delta uses Aeromexico for these flights nor the complications that will arise as a result of this partnership.
