The long way home

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This is a shaggy dog story ... so please keep that in mind ... Also, if you work for Delta Airlines, you might want to skip this entry or quit your job, because it doesn't put Delta in a good light.

E.. and W.. had booked a series of flights using Expedia starting in Doha at 18:05 to Dubai and onwards to Atlanta GA and Asheville NC. W.. is attending camp near Asheville and E.. is going onwards to Vancouver and on the way back picks up W.. and proceeds to Lusaka with slight delay in Doha. The original flight was cancelled by Delta with notification by email at 23:00 the night before. So, E.. got on the phone with Delta and they rebooked her via Heathrow on Qatar Airways. One small catch. The QR flight left at 07:00 not at 18:05. No problem really. It just meant only W.. slept that night, since N.. and E.. had to scramble to finish the packing and prepare a pre-flight breakfast.

We got to the Airport over 2 hours before the scheduled departure time. And QR says ... yes, there's a booking for E.. and W.. but there's no ticketing. The Delta agent on the phone had missed a step. Of course, QR wouldn't let them board.

So back home we came. E.. spent 4 hours on the phone with Expedia and realized that Expedia was just going right back to Delta. So, she called Delta directly, and 2 hours later got a changed itinerary with all legs on Delta code shared flights. No problem eh.

The flights now left at 23:59 not 18:05 and went via Amsterdam. Once again, we got to the airport (E.. still had next to no sleep since the original email from Delta) with lots of time to spare for the 23:59 flight. We arrived around 21:00 and the KLM code shared people said yes, there's a booking ... we said, here's the ticket number ... then KLM said, but that ticket's not been "opened" ... what? What does that mean?

KLM insisted that we had to call Delta. We said that Delta was KLM's business parter and since the flights were code shared, they'd better get the manager down and fix the problem. After much to-ing and fro-ing and the occasional raised voice, the KLM check-in agent talked directly to the Delta agent on the phone and the Delta agent then said we had to cough up $380 per ticket, since it was a change to the original itinerary. What!

We again explained that it was all at Delta's end that they changed everything. Don't they have notes on their system that explains to the next service agent all the sillyness that has transpired? By this time KLM had closed the check-in gate. The Delta person then said, ok no charge, ... and we got the KLM check-in people to re-check the luggage and E.. and W.. managed to go through Immigration and Security pretty fast, because the line ups were real short at that time of the night.

In the mean time N..'s mom had been getting woken up througout the night in Vancouver with a stupid automated phone system that kept calling and saying the flight was cancelled. Everytime E.. called Delta, she tried to give them our contact info in Doha, but since they had the original mailing address in Vancouver, they didn't record the real phone numbers where we could be reached. Isn't it obvious that if the ticket is starting out in Doha then the person flying and needs to be contacted should be having a Doha phone number?

Perhaps the person in charge of these systems has the title of CTO ... not Chief Technology Officer, but Computer Troublemaking Orderer. Who dreams up systems where humans are taken out of the loop so computers can keep calling automatically to a phone number in the wrong city half-way across the world!

Just like those automated systems at many US airports where human agents have been replaced by machines that insist the person flying must have the credit card on hand that purchased the ticket. Even when the person flying is a minor and the unaccompanied minor forms have been filled out, and the associate fees paid, and the minor is homeward bound on the return portion of the trip. So, you can't buy a ticket as a gift? The ticket name must match the credit card name?

And don't get me started on the nickle and diming of fees such as check-in baggage fees that makes many people pack as much possible into the carry on luggage and thereby exacerbate the security scanning process. People with less carry on luggage are a lot easier to process!

Who's in charge of looking at the system as a whole? These are systemic problems ... yes, technology is being used badly ... but it doesn't take a whole lot more to make the technology work much better. Computers are meant to help people out, not make the customer experience horrible with off shore call centers every where but where they are needed. There should be a zap option in every voice-mail system. Any customer has the option at any time of choosing that option. The CTO who ordered the system, the person who designed it and the person in charge of implementing it can take turns getting zapped by the irate customers. That should go a little towards rectifying voice-mail menu hell eh.

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