[PHXFlyer]

Originally Posted by DavidThi

Ok, I know as little about the U.S. car companies as most - ie most of the models they make are not worth considering - but that's it. Who's responsible for their disaster, can the present management & workers fix it, etc - no idea.

We are now hearing talk about some of the airlines coming to Washington next with their hand out and their tale of woe. Well here I do have a bit more info to impart as I fly quite a bit. And I think we need to take a close look at why in this case.

Where have you heard this? I Googled "airline bailout" and all I found were many references to the post 9/11 bailout in 2001, a single blog from early September, and an article about India possibly helping it's domestic airlines by reducing some taxes and landing fees at airports.

Generally I fly Frontier and they are great. Not perfect, but great. I think having an animal on the tail of the plane with each plane named for that animal improves employee morale. There's definitely something there. And the rest of the time I fly United which is good (no animal on the tail though).

Exactly how does Frontier's livery improve employee morale? You think that simply painting cute woodland animals on the tails of planes will somehow fix the morale problems at many airlines?

But this past break we flew Delta and what a difference. I won't go into the items that can be laid to the fact that mistakes happen but rather discusses the systemic problems I saw.

We had reserved seats and the night before the flight my wife checked to see if we could get exit row seats. She found that our seat assignments had been dumped, and seats could not be reserved. She called Delta and they insisted she had not gotten seat assignments (she has the printout to prove she did) and that she could not get seats then - she had to do so at the airport.

The problem here? Their computer system randomly drops seat assignments and is incapable at times of making seat assignments. This leads to more calls in (ie higher costs) and unhappy customers.

Delta has had systems issues for quite a while. In some respects DL's systems are better than other airlines and in others not. Hopefully the merger with Northwest will bring some fresh faces to the DL IT team and they can work out some of the bugs. Hopefully they will start with their crapulent website!

What probably happened in your case, and it has happened ot me before too and not just on DL, was an equipment change. When you booked your reservation DL was planning to operate one type of aircraft but due to operational changes they probably had to change the type of aircraft. Sometimes the situation is such that they aren't sure about what aircraft they will actually operate so instead of allowing people to re-choose seat assignments only to have them change again they will make you wait to get your seat assignments at the airport when they know for sure the type of aircraft and seating configuration. Yeah, it sucks but it happens.

So we get our seats for Denver to Atlanta, but the computer still can't do seat reservations for Atlanta - Miami. Not even the gate agent can make it happen. But we discover why shortly...

In Atlanta we find that the flight is way overbooked, they are telling all stand-by passengers to go away and that anyone who did not check in at that gate 45 minutes before departure time may not get a seat. So for those connecting they gamed the system to insure that you could not claim a seat and if you were stuck in Atlanta overnight you were on your own.

For better or worse airlines overbook. Had you been involuntarily denied boarding do to the oversale DL would be required to give you a hotel for the night and re-book you on the next available flight to your destination.

They had a single gate agent and this guy was definitely not customer focused. So 2 first class passengers walk up and he tells them to get to the back of the boarding line. They explain that they are flying first class and he tells them he doesn't care. When I get on the flight I see the woman and her daughter and they look totally ******. First class passengers are the profit, you nurture them, and these 2 are probably never going to fly Delta again.

If I were flying in First and was told to "go to the back of the line" I would ahve stood there until he took my boarding pass. It really doesn't matter if the two you spoke of were in First Class because they paid for it or as a result of an upgrade or were re-booked from an earlier flight in economy. If your boarding pass says "First Class" you deserve to be treated as such. I hope they got his name and reported his snarky attitude.

Ok, so we get on the plane - all of us. Everyone is boarded and the stewardesses are talking in the aisle about how the flight is supposed to be full - but there are a boatload of empty seats. They count and run out to the gate agent to tell him that there are 22 empty seats. That's right, they ******-off all their customers and told all the stand-by passengers to go away when it was totally unnecessary.
This is a company wrecking level of software problems. (They did manage to fill all the seats except 2.)

It's very possible that the 22 empty seats were a result of connecting passengers not arriving in time to make the flight. You said that there was only one agent boarding your flight so it's possible that he didn't realize until the last minute that there were misconnects which caused empty seats. At least they were able to fill most of them with standbys.

We fly down with 2 of my daughters up in the bulkhead row. We get off and they are happy. Very very happy. The 1st class steward spent the flight hitting on them and giving them free booze. That included 2 margaritas for my 19 year old daughter. I don't know who has legal jurisdiction in the air but whoever it is would probably take a dim view of a steward getting and underage girl drunk.

OK, let me get this straight. It is somehow the flight attendants job to make sure your underage daughter doesn't consume alcohol? While you are on the same plane? Sure, he didn't ask for proof of age, but your daughter accepted the drink! I agree that the flight attendant was in the wrong but so was your daughter and it seems to me that you take no responsibility for this matter either.

...but on both sides of us are people with major problems and 2 Delta employees working on each to try to figure out their ticket. This both upsets the passenger and adds significantly to Delta's cost as 2 employees spending 10 minutes to check in a passenger is expensive

Why concern yourself with other people's problems? How do you know it wasn't an agent and a supervisor or another more experienced agent helping with a complex issue? It seems to me that with a 19 year old girl getting atnked on a plane you have problems enogh without concerning yourself with the problems of others.

Get on the flight to Denver and arrive at 11:30 pm - and there's no gate available. Virtually no one's flying in or out of Denver at that time but they don't have a gate for 10 minutes.

Late at night there are aircraft parked at the gate which will depart early the next morning. While parked they are undergoing routine maintainence. I guess you would have them move a parked aircraft out of the way instead of waiting 10 minutes for a departing aircraft to free up a gate. You accuse the airline of wasting money with 2 agents helping a customer but then you would have them tow an empty aircraft away from a gate to get you off your plane 10 minutes faster. Unbelievable.

So we go down to baggage claim and we wait, and wait, and wait. For 45 minutes everyone is waiting for any bags to show up - and the rest of the baggage area is empty. Our flight is it. But no bags forever. How do your baggage handlers do nothing for close to 45 minutes?

Again, you accuse the airline of waising money but for a late night arrival you would have extra baggage handlers waiting around for your flight to arrive.

The bags come out and ours are not there. So we check with Delta and they say that our bags are still in Atlanta - the computer shows they did not make the flight.

They don't scan the bags as they are loaded onto the plane so the computer would show the last place your bags were scanned while being sorted and sent for loading.

We're filling out the forms when my daughter glances back over at the carousel - and there's our bags.
Once again, the computer system has no relation with reality. And Delta was about to add the expense of driving our bags to our home over an hour away by telling us that they hadn't arrived.

There you go with the cost thing again. Why are you so worried about cost when you want parked aircraft moved and extra ramp workers on the clock for your convenience. And the fact that your bags were on the carousel proves that you're an impatient person. Had you waited another couple of minutes you wouldn't have wasted the agent's time in the baggage office. That cost the airline money as well!

Two big things strike me here. First is that if you are desperately trying to cut costs, you get the computer systems perfect. Why? Because the cost of a competent programming team getting the software right pays for itself a million times over. But Delta has computer systems that are broken in fundamental ways. Even in a good economy this will guarantee that Delta's cost or 20% or more higher than their competitors.

The two biggest costs for an airline are fuel and labor. They do what they can with fuel costs (hedging, lower turn-around times) but when push comes to shove the easiest way to cut costs is to cut jobs. That's why morale is low and painting cute furry animals on the planes isn't going to fix it. Which brings us to...

The second thing is that the Delta employees just don't care anymore. They've given up and are putting nothing more than minimal effort into their job (clearly including their programmers). Not a single Delta employee we interacted with had any esprit-de-core.

Why should they care? They might not have a job in the near future. Most of them don't make a lot of money anyway. Passengers demand low fares and premium service. Yes, a smile is free but at the end of the day the average airline employee isn't going to go to extroadinary means to satisfy someone who probably can't be satisfied anyway.

Recessions are necessary to put companies like this out of business. This was a single trip but with a connecting flight both ways we saw and interacted with numerous employees and the Delta computer system multiple times at 3 airports. And it was consistently a mess.

When Delta goes out of business soon (and if they keep operating this way that is guaranteed to happen), it is rough on the employees there - but it is necessary because it is so horribly managed.

Delta isn't going out of business anytime soon. Merging Delta and Northwest will be a challenge but Delta has had challenges in the past. Most recently and just before the merger they emerged from bankruptcy. They addressed many cost management issues and were poised to be profitable in the long run.