Liberté, égalité, fraternité...and Delta

When we got off the plane at JFK after having flown for 9 hours from France, one of my former students, who shall remain nameless, said to his friend, "Can you smell that?  It's freedom. We're back home!"  I interjected, "Um, there's freedom in France, too.  It's one of the three basic cornerstones of the country."  Seriously?  It's etched on like every important building in Paris, as you can see below.

And no offense to any New Yorkers reading this blog, but the odor one smells on coming back home to the US through JFK is a lot less pleasant than "freedom."  That airport is crowded, dirty, loud, and quite frankly not very welcoming at all.  Within minutes of our arrival, my colleague Jenny and I had already had a verbal altercation with an obnoxious man who got upset that we'd let the customs line move ahead of us by 4 feet because we were intent on making sure the other 29 people traveling with us would find the right line.  He did apologize, but only after he'd said, "I'm not letting 29 people in front of me in line!" to which we'd responded that those 29 people were KIDS who would NOT be getting in front of him in line.  Then Jenny said, "I'm sorry, but we've just come back from France where people aren't rude."  It was pretty awesome.  And actually true--at least based on our limited experience.

Despite the argument with the Ugly American, we managed to get through customs relatively unscathed, but then things took a turn.  As we were boarding the plane from JFK to Atlanta, I overheard a Delta worker make the following comment: "Everything that could have gone wrong today has gone wrong."  I stopped in the line and said, "Well, that's not what I want to hear as I'm boarding a plane!"  He replied, "Oh no, ma'am, everything is fine."  Of course, by "fine" he meant that the computer system on the plane wasn't working and that we'd have to sit there for 1.5 hours while they fixed it, only to be told at that point that there were storms in Atlanta and that we'd have to sit there for yet another hour.  Then we found out our flight from Atlanta to Nashville had been cancelled which meant that upon arriving in Atlanta, we were forced to pay for hotel rooms and for rental minivans to drive home the next day since they couldn't get all 31 of us on a flight home. 

Now in order to get reimbursed by the travel insurance for the hotels/minivans/unused flight leg, they need a written statement from Delta verifying that the flight was cancelled because of weather. Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, that's what I thought until I remembered that when dealing with Delta, nothing is simple.

So yes, welcome to the latest installment of my ongoing Feud With Delta, documented previously and in great detail in this very blog.

First of all, it is apparently not enough to be a MENSA member to navigate Delta's website.  There are multiple customer service links and numbers, but none seem to fit the bill.  It took me 10 minutes to figure out that I couldn't simply email Delta's customer service from the website link because it's all auto-formatted, and there's nothing in the drop-down menu for "we need written verification that you cancelled our flight because of weather issues" or "OMG, I just want to write you an email in my own words explaining what I need."  Then it took me another 5 minutes to find the appropriate phone number to call.  Then when I finally got someone on the phone and told her what I needed, she couldn't find a record of our having been scheduled to fly that night.  She finally found it but then couldn't find evidence of weather cancellations which is kind of weird since A) it was the VERY NEXT DAY and B) the entire Atlanta hub was shut down because of weather and C) Atlanta is a pretty important Delta hub.  I feel like if you work for Delta, you should know basic things like when the entire Southeast is shut down because of weather, but perhaps my expectations are unreasonable.

So naturally she had to put me on hold to speak to her supervisor.  The supervisor then told her to tell me that I would need to call back with every single traveler's address in order to mark each individual e-ticket with the weather cancellation.  That didn't make sense to me since all I needed was some sort of email from Delta saying that lightning had cancelled our flight.  But whatever--I immediately emailed all the parents and asked for each person to email me an address so that I could call Delta back and read off 31 addresses.

Then I called back the next morning.  The first person I spoke to had no idea what to do, so he transferred me to the "international travel desk," despite my protestations that the cancelled flight was not international.  Sure enough, the international travel desk had no idea what to do either, so I got transferred to a 3rd person who agreed with me that it was dumb for me to have to read off 31 addresses but who--shocker--had no idea what to do.  She transferred me to Person #4 who then transferred me to Person #5, but that was only after I was taken back to the original automated menu, at which point I almost started to cry.  Finally the fifth Delta agent got on the phone and asked if she could help me. She must have sensed my near-tears frustration when I said to her, "I certainly hope so because you're the 6th person I've spoken to since yesterday, and I need an actual human being at Delta to help solve a problem that to me doesn't seem that hard to solve."  It wasn't my finest moment, but she DID help me.  Within 5 minutes I had received this email:

To whom it may concern:

  

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about your recent trip. We would be happy to supply the information you requested.

Flight 1709 ATL-BNA on June 05, 2013 was cancelled due to weather conditions

 We regret any inconvenience, and I hope this information will be helpful.

Reference Record Locator GE57R4

Delta Air Lines / Customer Care Department

Of all the emails I've ever received from Delta, this one was the first one that wasn't filled with lies or patronizing comments.  Thank goodness for competent people.  It took me only 6 tries to find one.

Of course I can't let our unpleasant experience coming home negate the awesomeness that was our trip to France.  I'm pretty much a big fan of that country.  Sure, there's still a shortage of drinking water at restaurants, the bathroom situation can be dicey when there are no toilet seats, and the showers don't make sense, but I thoroughly enjoyed spending another 10 days there and highly recommend France to anyone who's never been.

We traveled through Rouen, Bayeux, the beaches of Normandy, Paris, Arles, Marseille, Nice, Monaco (which is not part of France), and Eze.  While a few people lost the battle against seasickness on a long boat ride in the Mediterranean, we ate a lot and walked a lot and learned a lot.  I think (hope) a good time was had by all.  And most importantly, I finally got to visit the Chateau d'If, and I got to eat escargots and profiteroles again.

So I guess that's that.  The rest of my summer should be a lot less exciting, if we don't count the fact that I still have to fight with the insurance company and that I may have to have my tonsils removed next month.  For now, though, I'm going to relax, get over my jet-lag, go catch up on all the TV I missed while I was in France, and go smell some freedom.