Delta’s brand new Naples to Atlanta flight melted down on May 27 before even leaving Italy. Flight 279 sat on the ground for more than seven hours, and was then cancelled outright. Roughly 200 exhausted passengers were herded onto buses and driven a dozen miles to a hotel where the airline had reserved just 13 rooms.
As the buses left, passengers were left in the parking lot with their luggage – and no rooms or onward transport.
@callmemomoney Do better @delta. This is absolutely ridiculous…
- 9 a.m. passengers begin boarding Delta 279 to Atlanta
- 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. rolling mechanical delays
- 5 p.m. flight cancels, passengers told to await hotel vouhcers
- 6:30 p.m. Two buses take everyone to a suburban hotel
- 7 p.m. travelers learn only 13 rooms are available; buses take off
Most everyone on the delayed flight was then left to scramble for taxis to take them to other accommodations at their own expense. Meanwhile, a Delta spokesperson maintains that All necessary accommodations were made… including hotel, transport, and meals.” I guess the word ‘necessary’ is doing a lot of work here, though the airline acknowledges they are “looking into” why customers were left outside with no rooms or return transportation.
Each passenger should be entitled to €600 in cash compensation for a cancellation under EU261, as well as hotel, meals, and ground transportation. Receipts for taxis and out-of-pocket hotels must be reimbursed.
When Delta famously failed to live up to similar obligations in the U.K., bailiffs halted check-in at London Heathrow and threated to seize one of the airline’s planes to secure the carrier’s $3,400 debt.
I’ve written about passengers hiring private bailiffs to collect on unpaid flight delay compensation, taking credit cards from airline staff in their offices to avoid seizure and sale of the office furniture.
Bailiffs once showed up at London Luton airport, delaying a Wizz Air flight to collect a refund that was owed to a customer. It caused a flight delay, and then Wizz Air owed EU261 compensation to all of the passengers on board! Former Slovenian Star Alliance member Adria Airways once even cancelled a flight to Vienna because they expected bailiffs to seize their aircraft over an unpaid 250 euro claim – which was weird, because everyone on the cancelled flight would have been owed compensation, too.
For a premium abandoned and stranded experience, choose Delta.
Is this the “world class” service that we expect from a “premium” airline?
All the travelers on this flight were all large families, so Delta fulfilled its obligations by giving the needed 13 rooms so that 15 people that correspond to each family could share a room (15*13) for the 200 passengers in total.
Since Delta did its fine job, all reimbursement claims as well as credit card insurance should be denied
@Captain Freedom — Zing!
Lot of issues at Naples….
“ DL uses a 763ER (JFK) and a 332 (ATL) and UA uses a 763ER (EWR).
maybe those 767s would have come in handy after all”
HAHAHAHAHA
Reporting Tik Tok posts as news. We’re doomed.
Gary, there’s a bigger issue right now (June 5-6, 2025) with Delta’s subsidiary, Endeavor, where apparently, they canceled nearly 100 flights in the last 24 hours, due to ‘WiFi’ issue (hmm, not sure that’s the ‘real’ reason). Anyway, had a flight out of LGA that got canceled; rebooked with American via JFK. A bit messy out there right now. Yeesh. TPG and Simple Flying recently posted about it.
@ Gary — Premium Airways strikes again! Probably operated by a POS 767-300.
This kind of situation happens at all airlines. Generally involves an outstation where employees are usually contract or sub contracted to a 3rd party. Little communication between airport staff and DL operations.
Naples is one of the worst places in the world to find OK accommodation last minute.
Last year, I was in a foreign, non-EU country. Delta’s flight had rolling delays then finally cancelled the flight around 8 pm. Eventually, they came up with a plan. Escort the passengers through immigration and have their exit stamp voided. Then have a line of taxis take them to a large hotel. Hotel check in is merely showing your boarding pass and having the clerk write down your name on their clipboard. Allow the passengers to buy dinner and save the receipt. Nothing is open except the convenience store across the street but they have microwave dinners.
Delta reimbursed round trip taxi and dinner and breakfast and gave 15,000 Skypesos. Very fair. No stress.
Ground handling, like telling the passengers what to do, was done by another airline which has a decent reputation.
Delta’s motto: “We’re not Happy until You’re not happy”
happened to me before, I paid for the hotel room and food and everything. and got reimbursed later.
I’ve flown delta and will fly again and again.
I believe an AA 789 had to divert from Naples to FCO due to not being certified to land at the airport. They did an unscheduled equipment swap going from a 788 to a 789 and didn’t realize they were not permitted to land the aircraft until they were not too far out.
Honestly, when flight cancel I always find my own accommodations. I’m a major control freak about my travel and want to stay where I want (or am willing) to stay. I’d rather sleep at the airport than get sent somewhere I’m not going to be happy with. At least then it’s my choice. I’m lucky I have the resources to do that.
So now we have a definition and yet another example of what Delta means when it uses the word “premium” as an adjective to describe itself.
Funny how no one else (other than Timmy Dunne) uses the word “premium”, in any sense of the word, to describe Delta.
Another Premium Disaster from Delta Airlines
PSA REMINDER–
NOBODY (not even Spirit) is worse than Delta in IROPS.
They stranded 700,000 in their hubs last summer. Some for over a week. Including over 5000 UMs.
Tim Dunn can post nonsense all he wants, but there’s nothing like the misery of an overnight delay getting into and out of a Delta hub like ATL.
Wallow in that AMEX glory all you want– but nobody deserves the treatment DL metes out when things turn to doo-doo.
Like cattle
I’ve had nothing but awful experiences with Delta over the last few years…endless delays, system break downs, hours waiting on plans for flight plans–the WORST
Good thing it happened in the EU where air traveler rights are codified in the law and enforced. If it had happened in the US, the pax would.have been entitled to NOTHING.
and yet, Tom, AA and UA consistently get more complaints to the DOT than DL does.
What on earth do AA and UA passengers complain about if it isn’t handling in IROPS?
and also, Tom,
you do know that a federal court has allowed DL’s lawsuit against CrowdStroke to move forward and ALSO the SEC and DOJ are investigating CRWD including for its handling of the IT meltdown last summer
I don’t expect most of the travel media to report these details but the evidence just might shows that Delta really was the victim of a poorly managed IT company that inflicted massive global damage. DL was just one of the most high profile companies.
Had a similar experience in Italy about 10 years. Flying with 5 others to Florence on Air France, got diverted to Pisa because of high winds. Landed in Pisa, was told by AF to wait outside at the bus stop and they’d have a bus to take us to Florence about an hour away. We waited and waited. I finally went back to the AF desk and it was empty. The airport was deserted (it’s a very small airport). They had abandoned us. Luckily I noticed a bus idling 100 yards away with a group of people outside talking to the driver. Through broken Italian and English I figured out the guy was driving to Florence and I manage to get us all on the bus for 5 Euros apiece.
Had a similar experience in Italy about 10 years ago. Flying with 5 others to Florence on Air France, got diverted to Pisa because of high winds. Landed in Pisa, was told by AF to wait outside at the bus stop and they’d have a bus to take us to Florence about an hour away. We waited and waited. I finally went back to the AF desk and it was empty. The airport was deserted (it’s a very small airport). They had abandoned us. Luckily I noticed a bus idling 100 yards away with a group of people outside talking to the driver. Through broken Italian and English I figured out the guy was driving to Florence and I manage to get us all on the bus for 5 Euros apiece.
@Tim Dunn – I’ll take this more seriously when Microsoft gets added to the lawsuits on the basis of providing a poorly-designed software product that can’t properly recover from error conditions on its own.
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That is something that should be done on US domestic flights. The airline will be quick to pay its obligations to its customers if they risk losing an aircraft, generating even more debt for delays.
Airlines should also lose their almost century old protections for things like lost luggage. Cancelled or delayed flights should be actionable as a breach of contract. Those protections may have made sense one hundred years ago when the industry was in its infancy. Its time it grew up.
15 folks per bed. 9 months from now there’s bound to be some kids born ;-p
Refugee,
I don’t know the inner workings between MSFT and CRWD but MSFT might have settled w/ some of the clients behind the scenes and also took steps to prevent something like this from happening again.
but again, the SEC and DOJ aren’t involved in what caused DL’s summer meltdown but they are for CRWD.
and DOT data for all of 2024 shows that DL cancelled and delayed a lower percentage of flights than AA or UA. So, no, the CRWD induced IT global meltdown didn’t derail DL from its superior operations compared to AA and UA in 2024.
@ Tom — Good job. Looks like you found Timmy’s button.
@ Timmy — Here, chee on this for a while:
New York/Newark (EWR) is on track to be the most reliable airport in the New York City area. Here’s an update on how we’re doing:
Over Memorial Day weekend, one of the busiest of the year, Newark exceeded New York LaGuardia (LGA) and John F. Kennedy International (JFK) in on-time departures. Over the last two days of that weekend, EWR had the best on-time rates of any large airport in the country.
From June 2-5, United flights at Newark had the best on-time performance across airlines at the three big New York airports.
Nearly 79% of United flights departed from Newark on time
88% of United flights arrived on time into Newark
90% of United flights departing Newark arrived at their destinations on time
Chew, not chee…
and, Gene, the DOT and FAA have limited EWR to far less flights than it operated before UA started complaining about the reduced capacity because of the scheduled runway project.
Of course, pulling dozens of flights per day out of the schedule would increase on-time
And the result has been that AA and DL are carrying hundreds of millions of revenue from LGA and JFK that UA used to carry from EWR.
and the DOJ and SEC aren’t on MSFT or DAL’s case but they are CRWD’s.
got it?
And yet UAL is guiding to the middle of their original earnings guidance range. DAL?
Ahhh… “That’s AMORE ! ” …. And we all know ‘ escremento’ happens… lol.
I’d like to know how they fit ‘roughly’ 200 pax in only 2 buses. If so, then, only 13 hotel rooms should be ‘no problema’ …After all, they were in Italia, renown for ” Il dolce far niente ” !!
It could have been worse, look at those poor blokes aboard DE 1234 ZRH-HER on 24 May – enduring 32 hours & 5 landings just to return to ZRH ( at least it seems there were enough hotel rooms for everyone in this case )…..
@ Easy Victor ( great moniker, BTW ) – I thought that motto was AA’s infamous ’emission’ statement ?
But DL could reinvigorate its marketing with : ” Keep descending ” !
However, boys, girls, others : ‘Lettuce’ remember that “the safety of our guests & crew is our highest priority” — and I’m truly grateful that the AA 787-9 diverted to FCO instead of continuing to NAP !
I saw a story that Delta sent a flight from the U.S. to Naples Italy that had a plane that wasn’t allowed to land at Naples so it landed in Rome. I wonder if this was the other side of that when they didn’t have that initial plane so they couldn’t fly back to the states.
So there is an issue with the math here., “200 passengers and 2 busses”. The average motorcoach holds approximately 50 passengers so somewhere the numbers/facts are off.
And yes NAP is an awful airport to find nearby hotel accommodations. The nearest large chain hotel is a highrise Holiday Inn @ a 10 min taxi ride
We were left overnight in a similar situation. Delta delayed our flight then tbe pilot said oops, I am out of flight time. The plane was overfueled…..sus. There were people on oxygen, several elderly who were handicapped left to sit in an airport at Atlanta without medication, or anything. Another passenger and I wound up caring for them. Delta so generously left us 2 boxed of blankets and said just roll up a blanket for a pillow. We were given a whooping 12$ to eat. That bought a coffee and cookie. Literally.
This is what happens when we have a lame administration who has their heads up their asses. The airlines now know they can get away w more shit in treating their customers without consequences. Pete Buttigieg would have never tolerated this behavior. The airlines know they can get do what they want .
Hey, it was 5 pm and the Delta employees working in the logistics department needed to go home!
Tim
CRWD may have been a failure, but Delta’s inability to deal with the situation was a massive problem that is their responsibility. SEC investigation or not.
The same way your teacher won’t let you off the hook when you don’t do your homework.
Jon F
You still can’t grasp that Delta might well have operated a higher percentage of its computers and servers on CRWD as much as you and others want to believe that UAL has the most advanced systems.
Not a single soul in over a year has told us what percentage of systems ran on CRWD for each of the big 3. AAL reportedly used it on very few systems which is why they got back up much faster than DAL and UAL.
And UAL did cancel over 2500 flights so you act as if you are in a position to throw stones when it was simply a matter of degrees.
the courts will decide with the help of the DOJ and SEC and I suspect a whole lot of people will be left eating crow when it turns out that CRWD acted inappropriately and created an environment that companies could not recover from.
and, one more time, UAL, despite operating far fewer domestic flights than DAL in 2024, cancelled MORE flights. WTH was UAL doing that they couldn’t operate a decent operation the other 365 days in 2024?
I had to wait 6 hours in Salt Lake for a Delta flight, but was fortunate enough to spend it in a Delta lounge. Free drinks and Buffet and comfortable seating.
Nice. Almost hated leaving!
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@ Captain Sully :
LOL … If DL was ‘on top’ of things, they would have provided complementary premium prophylactic amenities for the inconvenienced pax.
But, then again, there’s nuttin’ like making’ lemonade outta lemons… ” That’s Amore ! ”
Wonder if a lawsuit against DL for child support would have standing given Americans’ penchant for legal fun & games & victimization culture !
@Christine Ann Schmitz…
This way that airlines handle passengers during IROPS has nothing to do with the current administration. This has been going on since Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act into law in 1978. There have been plenty of presidents from both parties since then and they haven’t really done anything, nor would Petey boy have been able to change any airlines’ business practices. He certainly didn’t make any changes to our national air transportation system while he was Transportation Secretary. The majority of his “accomplishments” were geared toward highway & bridge infrastructure projects and railroad infrastructure projects where most of the funding came from Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. As a recently retired AA employee with over 33 years, I can tell you that the agencies within his department did nothing of real substance to improve US air travel during his tenure. His public optics of improved passenger protections and access for passengers with disability challenges did NOT create any new policy within AA. There were some minor tweaks to a few policies which addressed things such as the time limits in which refunds are processed, disability claims handled, etc., but the policies didn’t change, as they had already been in place for years.
Hopefully, Secretary Duffy and his department can get the FAA running a more efficient ATC system. That is a major bottleneck where a vast majority of our national transportation system problems occur. If our ATC system is improved then we’ll all see a marked improvement in on-time performance, lower rates of cancelations, resulting in less disruption in travel plans which will result in less need for the above mentored passenger protections. The person sitting in the Oval Office is irrelevant, if we citizens don’t get our elected representatives in Congress to make it a priority to have DOT endure that the FAA/ATC is modernized and becomes more efficient.
Spirit wouldnt do that…
We took a flight in first class, that was delayed 10 hrs from Germany to Atlanta, missed our connecting flight & Delta put us in a filthy rat infested hotel, that they did not pay for. (We slept with the lights on-due to the roaches & rats. I have photos!) we booked & paid for our own flight the next day, to get home.. Delta simply did not care, did not reimburse…
@Gene
They literally are limiting the number of flights in/out of EWR. Until they get back to full capacity, you can’t take those numbers are great.
As far as this story, it’s unacceptable for any airline to do this. Especially Delta, since Ed thinks his airline is “premium”. B763, A332/333 D1 is terrible. At least UAL and AA have a consistent J product (minus UAL B772 Hawaii configuration). I fly Delta weekly, so I know how much it differs…and getting a comp upgrade is almost non-existent now, even as a DM