[positivespace]

DavidThi:
First of all, let's get your facts straight. No airline is looking to Washington for a "bail out". Certainly not Delta. Delta will not be out of business anytime soon. They are actually one of 4 airlines that have showed a profit in tha past 2 years. Oh and to your surprise Southwest is not one of those airlines. The only reason Southwest's morale is so high is because their employees are the highest paid in the industry. I would be pretty damn happy if I was making 5-10 dollars an hour more than I am right now too.

To touch on the seat assignment issue, did you book your ticket on Delta.com or 1800-221-1212? Or did you book it through a cheap website as in Expedia.com or CheapTickets.com? If you booked it through an outside source it is simply a seat "request". A person that books that same flight on Delta.com gets the seat before you would. Another possibilty is that the equipment was changed as stated before.

The overbooking of flights is something every airline does. The no-show factor is a huge decision maker in how many the flight will be overbooked by. It is not unusual to see a flight out of Atlanta overbooked in the 20s. This is due to the fact that there are people connecting to that flight from all over the world. What are the chances that all of those people are going to make their original flight or be on time? Very slim. Also their are at least 5 rows of passengers that do not get seat assignments on every flight. Delta blocks 5 rows of seats on every flight for the gate agent at the departing gate to use to try to accomodate passengers with disabilities and families traveling together. So therefore there are 20-40 passengers that must get their seats assigned at the gate.

The agent in Atlanta being rude to the passengers especially First Class ones is completely unacceptable. I wish I could apologize for all airline employees world wide but that is just not going to happen. Some employees just need an atitude adjustment. If this ever happens to you again, get the agents name and write a letter to the airline on the airlines website. Employees do get punished for acts like this.

The flight attendant giving alcoholic drinks to your 19 year old daughter is also unacceptable. I have been carded on a flight before and the flight attendant should have done the same in this situation. If it is policy to card anyone that looks younger than 30 on the ground then it should be the same in the air. I'm not gonna be one of those people that blames you as a parent, your daughter is 19, she knows what is wrong and what is right, and at least you remember what it is like to be a teenager.

About your baggage. At 1130 at night I know for a fact that there is a skeleton crew working at any airport. I know it was an inconvienence to you and the other passengers to wait so long for your baggage, but it takes quite some time to unload an airplane especially if you only have a few employees working. Also I don't know how it is in Denver but I know at the airport I work at, the gates where the planes is at is 1/2 mile from where the bags are dropped to the passengers. When driving a bag tractor that has a top speed of 15mph this takes a few minutes. Delta is also improving it's baggage system as we speak. They are beginning to try to scan every bag when it is checked in, when it is put in a cart to go to a plane, when it is put on the plane, taken off the plane, put back on another plane, and taken off agian. So hopefully this releives some baggage errors. Although there is always going to be human error in this process.

I hope I answered some of the questions you had during your trip. I do apologize that some employees can make it a horrible experience to fly.