[semiartist]

During Flight 1208 from Seattle to Salt Lake City, Delta was experiencing mechanical errors and was consequently delayed for 1 hour 40 minutes from its scheduled time of arrive at 9am arriving at Salt Lake City at actual time 10:40am.

Because of this mechanical problem and delayed flight, we missed our connecting flight to Chicago O'Hare, and thus missed our international flight to Paris.

We spoke to Delta Domestic Client Services but they were not able to issue us a ticket for an available flight that would put us in O'Hare to connect to our international flight. The operator thus directed us to Delta International services to help us rebook our International Flight. With limited time, we quickly ran to the international counter and asked for their assistance, and they did not give us any options on either changing our International itinerary nor giving us proper refund for our flight tickets. They said our issue was not with Delta but with Northwest who is our connecting carrier for the flight to Paris. But the main problem rooted from the mechanical flight delay from Delta's end allowing us not to make our international connection.

We ran over to Northwest counter, and the representative (much more willing to assist us) said that Delta is responsible for any problems occurred to our itinerary and are liable of rebooking flights to accommodate our affected schedules.

When we went back to the Delta ticketing counter speaking to both the Medallion agent and floor manager of the afternoon (around 1pm mountain time), both agents were quite rude in response to our query. They responded "It is not our fault for your poor time management." "And that's what you get for being cheap." [In response to our mentioning we booked through expedia when we showed them our booking agent]. And additionally commenting, "If we were to rebook your international tickets that would be like we were giving you money, and we aren't free." Also the agents refused servicing us further by abruptly saying "Talking stops here, and so does any future conversations."

We went back to Northwest to express what had just happened, and their floor manager was appalled. In fact, earlier at noon, one of the Northwest agents contacted Delta to discussed the matter and was also rudely refused conversation from the agents.

We've had 4 Northwest agents in the ticketing booth aiding us for 3 hours to sort out this ordeal, with the floor agents of Delta only telling them "Their problem is not with Delta, and they should deal with Northwest if they want some 'kind consideration' for rebooking their flights".

I have Northwest agents and the Transportation Services manager as witnesses to the entire situation.

The main issue is that we were not given any assistance on rebooking our flights, and no Delta agents on the phone nor at the Salt Lake City Delta counters offered any compensation for the delayed flight and missed flights on our itinerary. They kept pushing us back and forth between representatives in Delta and Norhtwest saying it wasn't their "responsibility for our loss".

Out of sheer kindness, Northwest ticketing agents in Salt Lake City did their best and after 4 hours with no help from Delta's agents, Northwest took it in charity to offer us flights back to Paris, because we were stranded in Salt Lake City.

In the end, we still continue to deal with no Delta assistance. They would not compensate our hotel that we were forced to book overnight in Salt Lake City. Northwest agents were trying to discuss with Delta to get them to issue a hotel & meal voucher, but they responded "If you are looking to arguing this disagreement, you can consider this conversation over now."

Hence, we our out an extra day, and our forced to missed work on Monday due to all this mess. Our bags are stuck in Chicago, because Delta routed them there. And we have to file a claim to retrieve our baggage in Paris, which inconveniences us for several days, since our house keys are in those bags.

To sum it up, Delta refused service to us and did not offer any compensation for the trouble caused from a mechanical problem from one of their flights. We were at the mercy of Northwest, since Delta did not want to reimburse us for our missed international flight and said we were responsible for paying for another new international ticket to Paris.

[ChrisH]

Delta WAS responsible for rebooking your entire flight, even the international portion. The problem that is often run into, is that the international carrier, is sometimes not a U.S. Airline. If that is the case, it is more complicated to deal with those tickets, and sometimes it must be handled by that actual airline. In this case, if it was NWA that was your connecting international flight, Delta should have been able to assist you in having it rebooked.