Fuck you Richard H. Anderson, CEO of Delta

The BBQ Pit
1

Yesterday the wife had a curious thing happen while attempting to book a Delta flight online. She picked her dates, entered all her information, entered her credit card info, and clicked to confirm— and got a pop-up saying (in effect) “oh yeah, about that price… it’s actually $250 more, is that cool?”

Ehhhhhh, not so much. A call to Delta followed, in which she was told (in effect) “Yeah, price must’ve changed while you were booking, shit happens, amirite?” Ah! That must be it. Too bad, shit does indeed happen.

Except… restarting from scratch, she got the same result. One price was shown on every screen of the purchasing process until the ultimate mouse click, at which point <organ swells> it went up $250, is that cool?

“Yeah, about that,” explained the Delta drone (in effect), “sometimes the price changes and the website just hasn’t updated yet.” Sure, I guess. I mean, it’s slightly odd that their system can know that the price jumped but can’t manage to update the advertised price at the same time, but… systems can be temperamental. Just give it a little time to catch up.

Except… today the SAME FUCKING THING HAPPENED. Mind you, this is not ordering through Orbitz or Travelocity or Kayak or Shady Joe’s Bucket Shop, this is Delta’s own website. I began— notwithstanding my unflagging faith in both humanity and the superiority of our American capitalist system— to think Delta might be doing this intentionally, and wondered if anyone else had experienced something similar.

Yes, in fact, our experience is not all that unique. Complaints going back quite a ways, in fact.

So FUCK YOU, Delta, and fuck you, Richard H. Anderson. I don’t know you personally; you might be a prince among men in your daily life, but you’re the top turd on your shitheap of a scumbag company, so you get to shoulder the bulk of the blame for this scam.

But there’s enough to go around, so FUCK YOU every lying piece of shit customer service asshole who knows (and they have to know, I’m sure it generates no end of angry calls) that this is quintessential bait-and-switch writ large, but still parrots the boilerplate bullshit about unforeseen price fluctuations. I wish I could sterilize you all with my mind and then kick you in the soft parts with my actual foot just for good measure.

And FUCK YOU to the rancid cuntflap bootlick regulators that have allowed this to go on for fucking YEARS when it could not be more open-and-shut than a window on Laugh-In.

I just hope there’s still a good seat available when we suck it up and buy a ticket.

2

You DO realize those customer service nobodies (many with families they support) would probably be FIRED immediately if they tell you the truth about that, right? Otherwise, I support this pitting. Dick sammiches for all at the next board meeting (unless they’re into that. Otherwise, pussy sammich).

3

They have to tack on that $250 surcharge to make up for the recent decrease in the cost of jet fuel.

4

Delta actually bought their own refinery recently so they wouldn’t have to deal with the jet fuel spot market.

5

Nobody laughed at dick sammich?

I did. Shit, I ROCLed. C=couch.

oh well.

6

Dick sammich

7

Dick sammich lives!

Dick Sammich for POTUS 2016

8

If they didn’t find it funny the first time, they’re not going to find it funny the fourth time, either.

9

Yes. Endorsed. Least favorite airline ever.

I once had an experience that is relevant to pit thread about Delta. Flying back from Heathrow to the West Coast. I had a Business Class seat. It was extraordinarily painful to get that seat, for reasons having to do with computers and not associating my frequent flyer number to my ticket, and losing my reservation, and generally Delta just fucking the whole thing up, but after weeks of arguing with various people, and DELTA TAKING MY MONEY, I headed to the airport.

Bright and early. 4:30 AM or something equally disgusting. No one’s there. Odd. Eventually it becomes clear that the flight is delayed. Much, much later it becomes clear that I have had my seat re-assigned. To coach. Why? Someone finally tells me it’s because there was an equipment problem, new aircraft assigned, fewer seats, so sorry, here’s your ticket.

6 hours after I got to the airport, I’m finally going through security. And I’m furious. Call me a whiny baby, but when you’re getting on an 11 hour flight, and you think it’s going to be business class, and you get bumped down to coach, the reaction is the opposite of happy. It’s like glimpsing paradise, and getting bumped back into purgatory. So I look furious. I am furious. Which apparently sets off some alarms somewhere. Middle-aged, white, business-woman me, gets pulled out for the “extra” screening.

Yep. There I was in the special room, with the men and women in the full SWAT gear and no sense of humor, getting interrogated about where I was going, what I was doing at Heathrow, how long had I been there, what are my intentions. I normally would have been freaked out of my mind, but I DIDN’T CARE. I just added it to my mental list of grievances against Delta.

I got an extra physical screening too, upon which I shall not elaborate further (DELTA!).

Delta fails at customer service big time. FAILS.

10

Pussy sammich?

Sleep deprivation

going to bed

11

So… you’re not a fan?

12

Yeah, I had hundreds of thousands of Continental frequent flyer miles. They were never to expire. Then they merged with Delta and all the benefits of a Houston hub vanished. Flight frequency dropped while prices went up. The kicker for me though, I just happened to see an obscure, tiny little notice in the paper one Thursday saying that all my miles were going to expire in a couple of fucking days if I didn’t immediately book a flight or trade some miles for a restaurant meal I’d likely never use. Years of patronage I’d given them and with no letter, no TV announcement, just in an off page newspaper blip they change the rules. Terrible merger, lots of employees laid off, worse service, a shit deal all the way around for the consumer.

13

Note, not that I mind booking a flight but they damn near stole all my accrued benefit with no decent effort on their part to inform me the rules had changed. That’s bullshit.

14

That sucks. Have you tried booking through Orbitz or Expedia instead to see what the price is or do you need to use Delta for the frequent flier points or something?

15

Ah, good. So now they can buy on the crude oil spot market and make their own jet fuel, and sell the gasoline and other distillates on their spot markets. It’s brilliant!

I don’t think Continental and Delta merged. I checked Wikipedia to confirm my memory, and Northwest did have some kind of controlling interest in them a few years ago, and then NW and Delta merged, as did Continental and United.

It still sounds like pretty scummy behavior, but I don’t know if it’s Delta’s scummy behavior.

16

Dammit, it was United. Thank you, Robot Arm. Apologies, Vinyl. I’ll sew my ire elsewhere. (United sucks!)

17

But, if course, all that costs money so it’s actually going to be another $250. Is that cool?

18

Never have these kind of problems with Greyhound. Just sayin’.

19

Obligatory Family Guy clip.

20

The rest of your post certainly applies to Delta; however, I don’t see why you’re hating on Delta for the security bit–they don’t run that.

Should I mention that on my last flight, I got bumped up to business class for no charge?