[elizab1949]

Two people wasted a total of 4 hours on hold with Delta. Due to Hurricane, I changed my flight to sat morning departure from San Diego, to arrive NYC before hurricane was to hit. of course the airlines cancelled all flights incoming to NYC airports from 12 noon on sat. 8/27. Delta did not contact me to re-book. i went online but was told i could not change flights via delta.com. so was put on hold for over 1 hour. told only reservation was seat to philadelphia on tuesday, 8/30. after making the reservation, I realized i could not go on that flight...i had a meeting that i couldn't miss. so called the airlines back, on hold again for over an hour. finally rebooked flight from LAX to Newark, departing early morning on tuesday, to arrive tuesday 10 AM. Confirmed two times with agent - received email which stated flight depart san diego on wed., 8/31. Another 1.5 hours on the phone on hold. finally got a flight again from San Diego to Phildelphia via Atlanta.
Delta knew of the mess that would result from Hurricane Irene - had ample time to hire more agents and re-organize flights. i am putting this complaint all over the internet, delta has screwed me over one too many times now. i'm done.

[cortney]

i dont think an airline is going to spend the money, take time to train them all for a hurricane. by the time they are done training new agents, the hurricane would be long gone. my training for reservations for skywest/united was 2 weeks. during storms like this, the best thing is to have patience. there are THOUSANDS of travellers that are going to be affected and phone calls will take time

[elizab1949]

I am sure you are correct, the airlines cannot be expected to hire as many new agents just because there is a hurricane. but that is not the point - this is not the first time there has been a big emergency where the airlines have been affected - this is not new and they (all airlines) should have been better prepared. No one waits for 2 hours to have a call answered, which is when I hung up. my daughter was calling at the same time, she got a message to leave her number and then received a call back 1.5 hours later. Paying customers can only be expected to have so much patience - and there is no excuse for an agent to say one thing and actually get it wrong on the reservation. even though one can't prove the mistake was made, that does not mean the airlines can't apologize and offer some compensation. These airlines are so mis-managed and are always crying victim - when in fact, they are profitable and if they don't see the $ it is because they are not managing the companies well. we have bailed out too many airlines that should have folded. my case is just one in a multitude of beefs I have with Delta.