First of all, it occurs to me that far too many people have way too much time on their hands and are spending A LOT of time analyzing and picking apart my complaint! All that analysis to determine whether or not my complaint is valid or not? REally???! Sorry, but I have more important things to do than to be making up things for fun.
Let me clarify a few things -- first one of my sentence structures caused some confusion. What I meant to say is that the NOTIFICATION of the air conditioning being out of service took place AFTER we boarded and began taxing. In other words, we WERE NOT TOLD that the air conditioning was broken until AFTER we were stuck on board and unable to deplane.
In my posting I only citied my experience and perception and also details that were divulged to me by the flight attendant on board (please go ahead, look her up and ask her to validate). She told me why the pilot would need to fly low, and the fact that the air con unit had broken down on an earlier flight, and implied that all of these equipment problems are typical of Delta. I am not a technical expert -- just a dissatisfied customer who experienced a bad flight.
The pilot announced the altitude at which he would be flying; I don't have an altitude meter to determine the actual altitude at which he flew the plane--good for him if he actually flew higher. I still stand behind my complaint that Delta could have communicated the situation more accurately to their passengers. Some passengers, like my husband, have a health condition and, therefore, we could have made alternate arrangements IF WE KNEW IN ADVANCE what the conditions in the aircraft would be like. The lower altitude felt dangerously low to me--perhaps that is the one point that everyone is so hostile about if it indeed posed no additional risk. It seems logical to me that when a broken air conditioning unit and the need to fly much lower are connected (as the flight attendant stated in cause and effect terms), this is somehow connected with passenger safety.
I love hearing the defenses about the baggage snafus as well. Three of our bags were boarded on an earlier flight and one of our other family member's bags were on our flight. When I say family members, I'm talking people with different surnames -- Delta would have no knowledge that we were part of the same "group." Bottom line is, way too many bags get mishandled way too many times and it is always pain in the rear end to the customer. Any time a bag is lost is lower than the standard level of service that any airline should meet-regardless of the situation. Customers should expect their bags to be on their plane--or be rightly irritated for the inconvenience.
On our particular flight, it was several things on a single flight experience(the broken air con, flying at a lower altitude, the lack of running water, the broken seatback which I didn't even mention, the bags being mishandled) adding up to a lack a my confidence about Delta's level of quality control. That is based on my perception and experience.
At any rate, Delta responded with the standard $50 travel vouchers on a future flight.
This is supposed to be a productive forum and a thread about describing problems and EXPERIENCES but it really felt like an attack from people who are more interested in investigating the accuracy of the claims rather than hearing customer's in flight problems and experiences. I have no interest in participating in further postings or conversations in this type of environment. Good luck to everyone else who chooses to post here!
