One Stop, No Change of Aircraft Reality
As a Platinum Delta Passenger I have a story to tell you about One-Stop-Flights and Delta customer service.
On June 7, 2011, I checked in for Delta Flight 6106 leaving Raleigh-Durham for Syracuse, NY with a departure time of 1:05 PM. My ticket was a last minute, day of flight purchase and was a full fare, fully refundable ticket due to the nature of my job and its travel requirements.
My receipt listed the carrier/vendor as Delta Airlines “Operated by Chautauqua Airlines, A Delta Connection Carrier” This flight was a “one stop no change of aircraft” flight with an intermediate stop at JFK. I was issued a boarding pass listing “LV Raleigh-Durham 105P AR Syracuse 513P”
These one stop flights are relatively worry free even if your flight has delays as at least you know you will make the next segment as you are on the plane that is taking you to your final destination.
The plane was a small regional jet. I was assigned seat 1A, which was facing the flight attendant positioned in front of me.
The flight left RDU with 3 passengers going to Syracuse, of which one was an unaccompanied minor. The remainder of the passengers would be deplaning at JFK
The aircraft left RDU at 1:18 PM, thirteen minutes late and arrived at JFK at 2:59 PM which I understand was 1 minute late. The plane then sat on the ground for over twenty five minutes as there was no gate available. While on the ground I received a pushed notification on my I-Phone that the departure gate for the second leg of the flight had been changed.
I inquired of the flight attendant if the plane we were on was going on to Syracuse but she replied that she did not know, but not to worry at all as the gate agents knew we were on the ground and that we were “through” passengers on the same flight.
After we got to the gate she found out from the flight deck that in fact the plane we were on would instead be going to Baltimore and not on to Syracuse, NY.
Upon exiting the aircraft there were no baggage handlers to retrieve the plane side “pink tagged” bags so we all had to await their arrival and for them to remove our bags. I made it to the departure gate for the now separate flight to Syracuse at about 3:35PM where upon I was told I had missed my flight to Syracuse and I was also was told that something was wrong anyhow as I had a 1:05 boarding pass from Raleigh to Syracuse and no boarding pass for JFK to Syracuse.
I learned subsequently that the flight to Syracuse had pulled off the gate at 3:40, five minutes early in order to “get a good take off slot”
I next rushed to a Sky Priority customer service counter and explained my situation. I was told that Atlanta had ordered the plane to close its door leaving the through passengers to fend for themselves. I was offered a flight to Syracuse after 10:29 PM (arriving at 11:59 PM) or I could fly to Rochester, NY and rent a car at my expense and drive home. No compensation or meal vouchers were offered.
One little problem was that they did realize they had an unaccompanied minor to deal with for almost six hours. I sure her parents were not going to be upset at her spending all day at JFK and getting into Syracuse around midnight. When the customer service representatives discovered the presence of the minor child, panic ensued. They tried to radio the aircraft but the plane was unresponsive. After panic calls to Chautauqua Airlines and the intervention of several managers a decision was made, that since the plane was still on an active taxiway, to bring the plane back to the gate to pick the minor child up and also lets us on board. Needless to say, this caused more delays for all the passengers and extra costs for Delta. All of this would have been unnecessary had they held the flight at the gate for about an additional five to ten minutes in the first place. It is not like we were missing a connection, we were technically on the flight.
It was very clear however the unaccompanied minor not had been on the through flight, Delta would have cared less for us regular passengers. We would have been stuck in JFK. An Delta employee quietly told me that an Atlanta ordered door closing was more important than the customer relations even with there elite class flyers.
Oh, do you think I will get credit for the last JFK-to Syracuse flight segment towards my segment count? I doubt it.