[mariademarbella]

My husband had lived in the States and was forever telling me how good the service was so I was looking forward to my first experience.

We booked the flight through an agent about 3 months before, here in Spain.
At check-in we were told there were no seats available together. The check in girl said in Europe you could not choose your seats before as you can in the States and she admitted it was very unfair.

We said that we would rather not board if it meant sitting apart for 8 hours and would change the flght at our own expense for when it was less crowded.

She then said no we could either upgrade as there were plenty of seats in business class or the cabin crew would ask someone travelling alone to swap with us. She said to ask at the gate and they would help

This we accepted but to our dismay no one at the gate could help and said to ask once on board. We were already upset at this. On board they said just sit down and we will sort it, we dont want any dramas today!!

After take off we asked again. There were three empty seats in the next coach but we were told they were for the crew. This was a complete lie as they were never used by crew members and in fact two other passengers moved there halfway through the flight.

Not once did any crew member come and try and help the situation, they totally washed their hands of it and were not the least bit interested.

I have written to Delta several times but just the same standard fob off lines and Mr Jones will not answer our questions.

Namely 1. Why did the check in girl lie. It would have been far easy if we had not boarded. 2. Why did the crew lie about the 3 empty seats.
3. Why on the homeward bound flight can we book our seats and not here in Europe.

What started off as a minor complaint is now escalating because we are being ignored.

[jimworcs]

The problem is that staff are more interested in fobbing you off and getting the problem away from their desk than they are in solving the problem. You would have been better off insisting on the re-booking a later flight, because whilst many airlines employees are decent and will try to help, many are cynical liars who don't care. It is hard sometimes to tell which is which, so they force you to assume they are all cynical liars and not trust them.

[mariademarbella]

Thanks but where do we go from here to get satisfaction and to alert other passengers.

Delta is now just ignoring us

[jimworcs]

They will argue (correctly in legal terms) that they have fully fulfilled their contract to get you from Spain to the USA and you are therefore not entitled to anything. I think you have done the only thing you can. Give them bad publicity and vow never to fly them again. The key is to mean and genuinely never fly them again. I had a bad experience with Delta over 12 years ago in Charlotte, NC and I have never flown them again. If enough people did it, it would make a difference. The problem is too many people choose only on price, and that in part drives the fight to the bottom that many airlines are on.

[mariademarbella]

We will never fly with them again. They are the only airline that operates direct from Malaga to NY. All the others are from Madrid. We did not choose them on price just the fact they are the only direct flight and less hassle than going to Madrid.

They will be getting a lot of bad publicity here in the press on the Costa del Sol. They have just recently opened up this route and bad publicity will do them a lot of harm.


Thank you for your time. We will let you know if anything positive happens.