I’ve flown Delta quite a bit this year, including on Friday to Las Vegas. They’ve become the second largest carrier in Austin, behind Southwest (which has ~ 41% of the seats at the airport) with big plans to grow. Their quite nice Sky Club used to be sleepy, but was packed with barely an open seat on a peak travel afternoon.
There are a number of things about the experience, though, that struck me.
- Gate checked bag announcement. Prior to boarding agents announced that everyone in groups 7 and 8 would have to check their carry-on bags, so to please come up and do it before boarding begins. Delta has fewer large overhead bins than competitors, and hasn’t seemed in any hurry to change this.
- Wifi was often unusable throughout the flight. Delta wifi is free. They weren’t the first to offer this, but they were early. And while they delayed implementation to improve bandwidth, free means more passengers use the system and it just can’t handle what everyone on the plane is trying to do. Frequently during the flight the system would just bog down to the point that nothing would load. I’m one of the few people that’s not actually looking forward to American Airlines wifi being free next year. It seems like only Starlink can handle free, and I’d rather pay $17 than $0 but not be able to use the system.
- No gate on arrival, as prior aircraft delayed. Delta’s operation is better than it was in 2022, but it’s still not back to where it was pre-pandemic.
So much about the Delta experience seems on cruise control, or cut back. But they’ve been very good at marketing. Customers talk about upgrades ‘to middle seats’ (extra legroom coach has been internalized as an ‘upgrade’), even as Delta leads the way monetizing first class seats for as little as $26 to once a year flyers rather than offering them as a reward to $30,000 a year customers.
By the way I’m very happy with my Flying Blue Gold status (from Bilt Platinum) which doesn’t get me Comfort+ plus does get me exit row seating. I’ll gladly take an exit row aisle, or the infinite legroom window, over Comfort+ – that would be a downgrade.
Snacks have been cut back, with fewer passengers and offering the regular coach items in first rather than the Comfort+ basket. They don’t proactively offer earphones anymore.
I’m not a United fanboy by any stretch. And Delta’s domestic flight attendants are still friendlier and more proactive than United’s. But the Delta transatlantic fleet is half sad, with ancient seats that are the worst among U.S. carriers. And United’s domestic cabins with large screens, oversized bins, and soon Starlink wifi easily trump Delta.
When I express credulity over United’s claims to being a true premium airline, I have to temper that remembering that this is relative to Delta and Delta seems to be cutting back in many ways. Delta regulars frequently complain that Sky Clubs have seen cutbacks since the airline opened business class Delta One lounges (those Sky Clubs no longer need to serve as many Delta premium cabin passengers).
You used to give up frequent flyer program value to choose the Delta inflight experience and reliability, but as those erode why would you continue to do that? Why would you spend on a Delta Amex to boost status when status gets you less? And while United has consistently slashed value out of MileagePlus generally, the do seem to be trying to maintain value for elites and cobrand credit card customers with better saver award availability. MileagePlus is still far better than SkyMiles.
Scott Kirby may be right that there’s only room for two premium airlines in the United States, though he never really offers a warrant for the claim. But if he’s right, who’s to say that it’ll be United and Delta? Maybe it takes a decade of further decline, but it’s hardly a foregone conclusion that further decline won’t happen. I’m not confident that American will really step into that breach, of course.
It is a shame that American Airline sank to the bottom of airline ratings. How Parker and now Isom (and other US Air guys) were able to ruin a once great airline.
Cold-blooded, Gary. Cold-blooded.
@Tim Dunn — Dawg.
We offer earbuds now on every flight
I don’t need Scott Kirby to define the competition. But as anyone who has flown on DL, UA and AA can attest, there is certainly plenty of room for competition between them. Competition is a good thing! Let’s see more of a race to premium and less of a race to the bottom.
@Peter — “I like the cut of your jib.”
Delta’s meal service is horrible!!! Every single flight over seas is short ribs!!! I am so sick of short ribs but the second choice isn’t any better chicken thighs!!! Unfortunately, the service itself has gone downhill. They bring everything at once. KLM did a much better on their non stop service from San Diego to Amsterdam. However, their desserts are terrible!!! What happened to the cart service? Bring back homemade chocolate chip cookies mid flight. And stop let’s coach passengers use the first class lavatories. After all, we pay a
Premium to be in first class, we should not have to be competing with coach passengers to use the bathroom!!!
DL led the way with Basic Business. DL continues to find ways to innovative the ULCC experience within the airline. Others will most certainly (eventually) follow.
I happen to think Delta is the worst of the big 3. They are just as terrible as the other two, but somehow think they are great. Recently got bumped without compensation on a flight out of CVG. Had to buy a ticket on a different carrier walk up to get where I needed to go. The lady at Delta couldn’t care less and trolled me about it. The ticket was only $75 she said. Except I spend 30k+/year just not on you. My walk up on AA was $800 and made for a sleepless night.
Oh @Gary, what are you playing boke the bear with @Tim Dunn? It’s the Christmas season, leave the poor boy alone.
But, yes, Delta has been on cruise control and slowly losing altitude for years. Or, if you like a good conspiracy theory, they realized fast change yield swift pushback, while slow degradations in service or benefits seems to be tolerated better by the masses.
Delta lounges are a cut above UA ar the airports that matter to me (SFO and their hubs). They have fewer delays than UA (at least for those of us not flying thru ATL)
But when it comes down to it UA mileage plus’s is far superior to DL in every way. More saver awards for all types of seats, more TATL and TPAC biz, more last minute seats for 15k, a much better app for purchasing & maintenance.
Delta sells flights in first-class, like Oklahoma City to New York City-LGA, advertising a meal service but doesn’t cater a meal because they’re too cheap to sign a catering contract at certain out-stations. When you complain they don’t even offer 10,000 miles or whatever to make you go away. This is false advertising. How are customers supposed to know this in advance?
Delta has also reduced the snack basket on flights when they do cater. The snack basket itself when it is offered is small with fewer choices.
In the hub fortresses, the Sky Clubs now have paper cups instead of glassware for non-alcoholic drinks like soda (pop).
The average person who flies and doesn’t read or obsess over airline travel blogs/videos couldn’t tell you the difference between DL, UA, and AA. They’re all the same, but just some with bigger mouths and egos.
We all know that your entire existence is based on anecdotal experiences but you would have a whole lot more credibility if you backed up your statements with actual statistics rather than extrapolating out what you experienced as if it is the basis of reality.
Delta clearly has far better automation to be able to predict the number of bags that are going into the overhead bin. I haven’t been on a Delta flight in years where the gate agent made an announcement that gate bags would need to be checked only to find open overhead bins at departure, which regularly happens on both AA and UA.
The number of people in each boarding group changes w/ every flight so it is very possible that a flight with a higher percentage of higher fare paying passengers will run out of overhead bin space.
Do tell us, Gary, how full were the overhead bins when the flight departed?
And while you are at it, tell us the percentage of AA, DL and UA’s mainline fleets that have large overhead bins.
and while you are at it, tell us the percentage of AA, DL and UA’s flights that are operated by regional jets including Canadair models. DL has the highest percentage of mainline operated flights which means that there is a much higher percentage of passengers that can get standard rollerboards onboard which are limited even on Ejets.
I was just on 4 DL flights this week and the usual 3 or 4 snacks were offered.
DL has free high speed WiFi on more aircraft than any other airline in the world. In the past 2 months, I have been on DL aircraft w/ free WiFI over the Atlantic and also on RJs. No other US airline comes close to having the number of aircraft with free high speed WiFi.
as for DL’s TATL fleet, it is composed of 40 A330-900s which have Delta One Suites; the TPAC fleet is almost entirely A350s which have Delta One Suites.
The incessant and childish focus on the 767-300ER fleet belies the actual facts that DL operated only about 15 767-300ER flights/day over the Atlantic this past summer; half of those competed against UA 757s which do not even have direct aisle access.
DL, like AA, is beginning work on installing new cabins on its older aircraft – the 330CEOs for DL and the 77s for AA. UA has announced no plans to renovate cabins on any of its older aircraft and also has announced no plans to retire any widebodies.
You hurt your credibility when you make broad brush statements based on anecdotes and even more so when you base them on factually incorrect observations.
Do better, Gary.
I love it. He thinks he anecdotes are data and others’ are anecdotal. Complete lack of self-awareness, but it’s funny.
Ed Bastian’s focus on Amex over Delta is showing on the operational line. Tim Dunn is free to claim otherwise but their record on my transpacific trips via DTW on A350’s is abysmal. Only 25% operated on time, 25% had > 2 hr mechanical delay and 50% cancelled.
And as noted by Gary, the C+ service has reverted to same as economy. Interestingly the economy service has remained the same. It’s only those that dare to spend for flying frequently that experience the downgrade in service.
Not speaking specifically about Delta, but the big three in general, I’ve seen a cycle of quality over my 40 years of flying. An airline ups it’s game to increase traffic, but after it has achieved its goal it bumps up its prices and down its costs (quality) to harvest the value created earlier. Passengers fall away and the airline restarts the cycle by improving once again. The goal of most publically traded US corporations is to increase sharholder value and leadership salary and bonuses. It makes sense to me to avoid becoming too attached to any one US airline.
@ Gary — “MileagePlus is still far better than SkyMiles.” This depends on your status. For mid-status flyers, this is true. For top-tier fliers, Delta is better than United. Delta GUCs and RUCs are light-years better than UA’s pathetic PlusPoints.
Tyrone,
again, YOUR personal anecdotes mean nothing for an airline that operates thousands of flights per day. and JL isn’t smart enough to recognize that I am not making my anecdotes data; I am just noting that my anecdotes don’t line up w/ others’ anecdotes – which highlights that anecdotes mean nothing either way.
even with your narrow DTW-Asia focus, it is not hard to look up the data but DL has nowhere near 25% operational reliability.
and I have been in the DTW airport enough to watch DL’s Asia flights leave on-time even though I know there are delays and, yes, cancellations.
The sooner you AND GARY realizes that your or anyone else’s anecdotes mean nothing in an industry that carries 1 billion passengers in the US every year, the sooner we can come up w/ accurate statements.
And UA is nowhere near close to even 10% of its flights w/ free high speed WiFi, none of which are transoceanic flights and most of the ones that do have it are regional jets.
AA will easily jump to the 2nd largest carrier w/ free high speed WiFi when they turn it on in next year – and yet it is UA that endlessly talks about its free WiFi and its seatback screens – even though a much smaller percentage of UA’s fleet has seatback video than DL or certainly B6.
It is all about accuracy
I cannot agree with you more on this, Gary. The food in Delta One are variants of the same dishes you’d get domestically now, much of the fleet is aging, the lounges are jampacked, the “fast, free wifi ” is terrible, the list goes on.
Delta has even removed salads and fruit from domestic meals as side dishes.
Everything that made Delta better, especially pre-pandemic, they seem to be lagging behind now.
“Do better, Gary.” Shots fired! Weewooweewoo!
WHINE WHINE WHINE. Boo freaking hoo. The WiFi is a deferrable MEL item. Sometimes it doesn’t work and can be deferred repair until the jet returns to a Delta maintenance base or an airport that has people that can reset it. Starlink is a great idea but…it takes time to have the item approved for EACH AIRLINE to use and will require downtime at a major maintenance base for it to be installed. That goes for interiors etc. Like most other airlines, if a item is deferred and depending on the allowable deferral time, the airline might schedule that aircraft to fly additional short or long trips to “run out” time so that additional maintenance can be done all at the same time. Quit whining about nothing.
Tim Dunn says, “your entire existence is based on anecdotal experiences but you would have a whole lot more credibility if you backed up your statements with actual statistics rather than extrapolating out what you experienced as if it is the basis of reality. You hurt your credibility when you make broad brush statements based on anecdotes”
Then Tim Dunn says, “I haven’t been on a Delta flight in years where the gate agent made an announcement that gate bags would need to be checked only to find open overhead bins at departure
I have been in the DTW airport enough to watch DL’s Asia flights leave on-time
I was just on 4 DL flights this week and the usual 3 or 4 snacks were offered.”
JL
You still can’t grasp that anecdotal evidence means nothing whether it comes from me or Gary or anybody else in an industry this large.
Statistics do matter in an industry this large, which is why I ask Gary to cite them. But you don’t want data because it would show that my points are valid and Gary’s anecdotal observations don’t reflect reality
@ Win W.
Since WI-FI is a non operational item, it’s not an MEL item but a cabin item which have much longer deferral times. FYI. MEL is for minimum equipment essential for safe flight, not passenger items.
Why do you need WiFi on a flight? It’s not an office.
Just sit back, relax, enjoy the flight with a scotch-on-the-rocks and a good movie from the seatback IFE.
right on, Marco
DL has more aircraft equipped with seatback AVOD than any other airline in the world.
@ Peter “Let’s see more of a race to premium and less of a race to the bottom.” But, the race is to profitability, and the airlines will strive for that based on the desires of potential pax. AA promoted extra legroom throughout coach a number of years ago. That meant less seats to sell, but, if you could get enough extra in average seat revenue, it could be a winner for them. Pax wouldn’t pay higher fares. AA added rows back. The simple problem is that XX can offer 32″ pitch with a nice meal, while YY offers 29″ pitch and no or lousy meal. XX charges $415 for a r/t, while YY charges $400. People take YY and complain about legroom and food. I love a great pizza, but independent, high-quality places struggle and close. People want 2 large pies for $20, buy it from chains, are unhappy with the quality, but won’t go to the independent because they can’t match that deal and keep quality. Bottom line: the flight experience deteriorates because many pax choose by price alone. We (OK not us, but other pax) are the problem.
Two pies for $20? I make pizza at home that comes out tasty and good. It costs a lot less than that because the basic ingredients are not that expensive. Of course, a hole in the wall or a restaurant will have a lot more costs involved.
I’ll offer my a anecdotal experience. I’ve been flying mostly Delta every couple of weeks for eight years or so, except a blip around the pandemic where it was only “critical travel”.
Had a few AA and UA flights here and there, but in the last two years it’s been all Delta, shuttling between ATL and MSP except for a couple of personal travel on UA/AA to connect to ME3 for international itineraries.
I’ll compare my experience with Gary’s on a few points.
The gate check announcement seems right. The planes have had the larger bins for the most part but in the last couple of months it’s been smaller bins. I usually get zone 4 so it’s not a concern if I make it on time but I tend to cut it short so I’ve had to check it in a few times at zone 7 or 8.
I’m a heavy user of the WiFi and never had any issues on the free one, I’m pleasantly surprised on that in the last couple of years since they started appearing.
Earbuds have been consistently offered at every single flight in the last two years.
The snack situation has deteriorated considerably. It’s just Cookies, Cheezits or Chips. There were delightful options available in the years past.
Having gold status I choose exit row aisle or window seats most of the time and quite happy with it. No chance of getting an upgrade to comfort plus anyway since there are hundreds of diamonds ahead of me on every flight.
The flight attendants have always been pleasant, that is one area where AA always lagged except for one flight that I had from Doha to Philly a couple of months ago that had a delightful crew.
As Gary sometimes mentions, premium is not only about the first or business class, it starts at coach. As someone who mostly travels on coach, Delta hasn’t improved anything other than the free Wi-Fi. Which is pretty huge for me so I’m not too down on them.
@IsaacM — Thank you for sharing. I believe you, because you’ve literally posted regularly about some of your itineraries (often MSP-ATL, etc.) In the aggregate, the ‘data’ that some espouse as ‘the truth’ is often comprised of our ‘anecdotal’ experiences. Then again, it’s quite easy to dismiss any opinions as ‘false,’ because it doesn’t fit other’s preferences. Some like Coke, others prefer Pepsi. Between the US carriers, I tend to prioritize Delta and jetBlue then American and United (interestingly, P2 loathes United for whatever reason). Does any of this really matter? Naw. But, boy-yo, if we say a single negative thang on here about DAL… gonna get a ‘whoopin’ by the ‘big ole dawg’ Tim. The reality is that any of ‘em can and do get the job done, most days, and, also, they’ve each let me down, too. Regardless, I’m glad these companies continue to operate, serving passengers, enabling careers, and benefiting our communities and the world in their own ways.
1990
you still don’t get it any more than JL.
NO ONE’s anecdotes matter for a company that serves over 100 million customers per year. It is simply about something being large enough for data, not anyone’s personal experiences to matter.
and specific to the points that Gary made, there is a known number of aircraft at each airline that have large overhead bins. It has not gone down even if Isaac thinks he has gotten more aircraft that don’t have it.
and the metric of how many aircraft have large overhead bins is not what zone has to check rollerboards. The number of people in each boarding zone is not consistent from flight to flight because someone’s status or type of fare determines the boarding zone one is in. It is very possible that 90% of a flight can be in zones 1-6 so 10% of the people might have to check rollerboards.
the only accurate way to know if DL’s method works is if there is space left in the overhead bins when boarding is complete and I find (again, anecdote) that DL gets far closer to filling the bins but not having space left over than AA, UA or WN
DL simply has more aircraft w/ seatback AVOD and high speed WiFi flying more of their global network than any other airline in the world. that is simply a fact and there are people on other sites that do track those features on every aircraft in DL’s fleet as well as its regional carrier aircraft. As noted, every airline will have specific aircraft on which those don’t work but, short of statistics showing that any carrier is worse off in inop equipment, it is very likely pretty consistent throughout the industry.
and the 3 choices are more than most carriers.
Isaac is correct that DL staff are more consistent than other airlines and generally more pleasant that is very likely a product of them not being non-union which means their employees can’t hide between a union if they deliver bad service.
as for marketing, UA has been marketing it has free high speed WiFi and seatback for most of 2025 if not before and yet they have a lower percentage of their aircraft w/ those features – and no aircraft w/ free int’l high speed WiFi for all (loyalty program members).
EVERY company markets. DL has simply delivered.
and if DL doesn’t add any new features, it is not a bad thing if UA matches most of those attributes nor will it likely tilt passengers from DL to UA given that the two carriers carry less than half of US traffic; it is other airlines that will lose to DL and UA and THAT is what is actually happening.
Except for DL’s salvo of starting LAX-HKG and LAX-ORD, DL and UA have largely NOT focused on direct competition against each other while they both are competing more aggressively against other airlines, including AA and WN.
good work, Gary.
You got 34 paragraphs (quick count…) out of ol’ Timmy.
Timmy, you’re so predictable lol
and, you, Max, continue to be more fixated with me than discussing the issue which is all that is really predictable.
@MaxPower, @Tim Dunn — Meanwhile, you’re both pretty silly to be playing ‘I like my airline more than the other airline’ game, on here and elsewhere, because, as far as mainline US-carriers go, the big-three are all pretty similar, honestly (uh oh, reality check, boys). Where we all should be focused is on enhancing worker rights and consumer protections, yet, at times, you industry-folk are only concerned with marginal profits, and seemingly couldn’t care less about what careers, services or products you’re offering and enabling. Huh.
thank you for bringing it down to what matters, 1990
You do realize that DL has led the industry in raising salaries post covid? and UA is by far the biggest laggard, to the complete detriment of tens of thousands of their employees in multiple workgroups.
DL’s revenue generation supports paying its employees well while UA’s doesn’t but they don’t want the world to know that gap so their employees pay the price.
salaries and benefits cost real objective money, just like the number of aircraft with AVOD and WiFi – and on-time performance.
As soon as UA employees are tired of drinking the Kirby Koolaid, we’ll see the profit gap on an apples to apples basis.
Some of these comments from TD are the worst lines of argument I’ve seen from him yet:
1. Delta’s automation to tell us how bad their fleet is in not being able to fit bags in the cabin is the best!
2. They have more free wifi planes than any other airline. That’s useless when the wifi is inoperable half the time, I was on PVG-SEA last week on a 5 year old A330-900 and there was no wifi – couldn’t do the work I was hoping to do.
3. Talking about the staff being more consistent, better or anything else makes zero sense. My partner is a flight attendant, all her friends are flight attendants across airlines, the selection process is the same across airlines, the quality they accept is the same across airlines, the training is the same across airlines. The only difference is at Delta they ask you how you feel about Unions in the interview and if you say anything positive then you are cut (but all the prospective FAs know this if they do their research and prep for the question). At Delta the FAs have no contract and no union, so they have no protection and are often fired for small things or things they can’t prove didn’t happen, so the snitching culture is large, they are also highly incentivized to work while sick or having other issues as they have no protection. The FAs I speak to have incredibly low morale (not that United or American is much better, but this is the point, the airlines are the same!)
4. Delta has more seatback AVOD screens? Yes because half of them are old and unusable, even when I was on my newish A330 neo last week my movies would flicker and stutter every half hour. TD it’s not about the numbers, it’s about the experience for passengers. If the experience isn’t worth the 20% more they charge on the same routes then passengers don’t want to pay for it.
5. The food and drinks experience on Delta is terrible, the food is barely edible, they serve you water in a cup (no bottles) on long haul, the snacks are terrible. They served me a “cheeseburger” last week and it was literally just cheese and hamburger buns lol I’m not saying United is better (though their pizza twists are definitely better than the cheeseburger), but at least I didn’t pay 20% more to fly them.
TD says, “DL has more aircraft equipped with seatback AVOD than any other airline in the world.”
How old is that AVOD in the majority of the DL fleet?
UA is 70% complete (540 aircraft) in installing new Bluetooth 10″-13″ 4K OLED screens in all narrow body aircraft since just 2024. When you add in the old (like DL) seat back screens and wide bodies, UA has it on 867 aircraft. DL has 992 aircraft, 80 of which are 717s with nothing, so UA’s superior seat back video entertainment will soon exceed DL’s in quantity also and that is before Starlink is installed. Starlink has already been installed in 250 two class UAX regional aircraft. It’s just a matter of time.
to no surprise, the UA fan nuts invent their own metrics when they can’t face the ones that matter.
Gary and 1990 are absolutely correct that DL employees consistently deliver a little bit higher level of service than UA or AA employees and THAT is why DL consistently ranks higher in customer service metrics than AA or UA.
DL doesn’t get higher customer service scores because of seatback AVOD or WiFi – because B6 has those also.
DL gets higher metrics because it has engaged and well-compensated employees and that has consistently been the case. WN had that advantage for a while but has lost the employee engagement somewhat over the past few years -but they still have a strong customer service culture driven by strong employees.
and the biggest issue is that DL has led the industry in compensation increases post covid while UA has passed out Kirby Koolaid while failing to actually deliver pay raises to a huge part of its workforce.
And, even if you focus on the technology piece that some want to argue, UA has precisely ZERO flights that offer free high speed WiFi across the Atlantic or Pacific while 80% of DL’s international flights offer it NOW.
and, the issue w/ the size of overhead bins is getting the amount of space in the overhead bins timed to agent announcements.
Not a person has yet to connect how well AA or UA does in not having passengers walk onboard to find empty overhead bins after being told they have to gate check bags.
I haven’t been on a DL flight in years where there was empty space in the overhead bins AT DEPARTURE after gate agents telling customers that some amount of large gates for the final boarding groups would have to be checked.
Anecdotes don’t trump actual data but no one seems to have actual data showing what percentage of flights leave with space in the overhead bin after gate agents checking bags – as if even that metric is reflective of quailty.
UA continues to trail DL in most metrics including customer service metrics as measured by multiple organizations.
50 paragraphs now, Timmy 😉
and pray tell, 1990
what is my favorite airline?
Gary’s anecdotes, bad. TD anecdotes good. TD demands data from others and brags about DL having lots of AVOD. Data shows DL AVOD is old. TD then says AVOD data irrelevant. DL good.
Too funny.
Guys, you know who you are and unfortunately we’re subjected to your comments ad nauseum. Get a life. Its borderline creepy.
Marc,
when people like JL post as many times as they do and STILL can’t get the basic points right, it isn’t hard to see why things have to be said over and over and over again.
Data trumps anecdotes. Period. Full stop.
In the absence of data, anecdotes are fine but neither “your” or “my” anecdotes don’t suddenly become more valuable or truthful. If anything, conflicting anecdotes just simply says that there is no basis for drawing a conclusion based on conflicting experiences.
It isn’t a hard concept for anyone with a modicum of intelligence to figure out.
“Post data, not anecdotes” – Tim Dunn
“I flew Delta 5 times yesterday and all the flights were way better than United could ever dream of being and also the flight attendants are nicer.” – Also Tim Dunn
As I sit here delayed due to operational failures with Delta for the 2nd time on this trip we have truly reached AA levels of service. Apparently this plane was behind all day yesterday due to mechanical issues, and they didn’t have crew on call, so the flight enver made it in last night. How the mighty have fallen.
These aren’t anecdotes Tim, these are real experiences. They matter no matter how much you want to cry it does’t matter. I got my butt out of bed at 230AM for this flight, after rescheduling one already due to DL canceling my original flight, and here I sit. They knew the plane wasn’t going to be here and instead of letting us know, they let us all sit here. being proactive on their part can make a difference but they don’t want to. and then we see that there is only ONE person at the check/bag check in desk for 3 early morning flights, with one significantly delayed is beyond pathetic. She was doing the best she could. Lines are down the hallways. Do you really think that looks better than AA or United? fortunately a bunch of desk agents showed up after about 30 or 40 minutes on their normal schedule.
It looks like the massive fail it is. Enough of those massive fails and people start looking elsehwere. I will certainly be making some different choices on my flying next year as a result. 2 years of this crap while hearing about ‘Premium” from Bastian is enough. I am sure I will remain at a high status with Delta next year, but I am going to explore a bit. Do I expect the other airlines to do better? I do not. But I will pay less for the pain and the hubris.
What made Delta great was their operational reliability with good service and a decent hard product. The first two are in real jeopardy right now.