A Delta flight attendant is justifiably upset about the way that one of their colleagues treated a family going through the worst situation imaginable, as flagged by PYOK. Unfortunately this seems to be one of those cases where the human touch is lost in the airline industry, which is all too common…
In this post:
Delta flight attendant upset over Red Coat’s actions
A Delta flight attendant recently posted online to share an experience where they were frustrated by the way that one of their colleagues treated a couple dealing with an unimaginably tough situation. Let me just quote the entire post:
We talk SO much about being the Delta difference and making connections with our customers, but when it comes down to the moments that would TRULY matter, how do we drop the ball so badly?
A young family was woken up this morning to the unthinkable news that 2 of their teenage children had died in a car accident. They booked the first flight they could (mine) to check on the surviving child who is currently in critical condition at the hospital.
My crew spoke with the Captain, requesting that we please have a “Meet and Assist” or Red Coat meet the family at our gate to help them navigate Atlanta airport from terminal A to terminal C. (Not getting lost should be the last thing on their minds at a time like this).
Simple, right?
Show empathy, compassion, and go just a LITTLE bit of the extra mile to help a grief-striken couple?
Instead, said Red Coat (AFTER having been briefed by us and being aware of the situation) points at the board with departures, then gestures in the general direction of Terminal C…from gate A10.
I am so upset right now on behalf of these people.
And most of all, I am extremely disappointed in us.
This was NOT a difficult ask.
Being kind to a grieving family on what is likely the worst day of their lives is NOT something that is beyond a Delta family to do. Again.
I am so extremely disappointed.
For those not familiar, Red Coats are Delta’s higher ranking airport customer service agents. Think of them as supervisors, who are supposed to provide the best customer service, and help customers when things go wrong.
It’s disappointing to see this level of care at Delta
I think all too often, the human touch is lost in the airline industry. In some ways, that’s understandable — it’s such a complex industry, and there has to be a focus on efficiency, and dealing with matters in a calm and non-emotional way. Furthermore, given the number of people that airline employees deal with, it’s natural to be desensitized a bit.
At the same time, this incident is really unfortunate to read about. While Delta’s service isn’t as differentiated as in the past (in my opinion), Delta still does want its employees to go above and beyond for people. Executives at the company always talk about the “Delta Difference.” Clearly the flight attendant in this situation recognized that, and tried to go out of their way to empathize with passengers.
I have to imagine that these parents were having the worst day of their life, and a little bit of compassion would’ve gone a long way. It just seems borderline heartless for the crew to ask the Red Coat to do something in a situation like this, and for the Red Coat to them simply point them to the departures board.
If anything, this seems like one of those situations where they should’ve rolled out the red carpet to give these passengers a Porsche transfer on the apron, to make their day better.
I’ve gotta say, in my experience, Delta’s airport customer service agents are a mixed bag. Flight attendants and lounge staff are generally very professional, but aside from that, it’s a game of roulette.
On a recent flight out of JFK, the two gate agents were arguing with one another over some personal matters, to the point that one told the other it was taking all her will to not get physical. Not exactly a great look, especially in front of customers…
Bottom line
A Delta flight attendant recently had a couple on their flight who had just lost their two kids in a car accident, with a third kid in critical condition. This seemed like an obvious situation in which compassion was warranted, so the crew contacted airport operations in Atlanta, so that the couple could be brought to their connecting gate.
Instead, the flight attendant claims that the Red Coat (who is supposed to be a senior customer service agent) simply pointed them to the departures board, and that was the extent of it.
What do you make of this Delta flight attendant story?
I remember when I was sitting in my doctor's office for a tummy ache. It was a pleasant day nothing or is the ordinary. Then the doctor tells me he found a mass and he thinks it's cancer.
My brain did a 360. Could not form coherent sentences. Struggled to think with logic and unable to ask any questions nor react. It didn't hit me until I drove home and turned off the ignition....
I remember when I was sitting in my doctor's office for a tummy ache. It was a pleasant day nothing or is the ordinary. Then the doctor tells me he found a mass and he thinks it's cancer.
My brain did a 360. Could not form coherent sentences. Struggled to think with logic and unable to ask any questions nor react. It didn't hit me until I drove home and turned off the ignition. Thankfully, my BFF went back to the doctor with me the next day and ask all the questions and details because I could not. A few years later I was at the doctor's work my dad and the same happened to my dad and I immediately recognized what was happening and took over the conversation.
You don't have to do anything. You don't have to request assistance for anyone nor do you need to go out of your way for someone who lost a child. But my god people there is compassion and there is going through life like a robot and everyone for themselves. We do what we can when we can to help other people. We don't have to rescue everyone. We just do what we can. That's the rent we pay for living on this planet.
Well at least Tim Dunn isn't here to comment on this....thank God.
He would go on for hours.
PSAs, Passenger Service Agents, what you call Red Coats, are NOT senior customer service agents. There are Customer Service Agents, Senior Customer Service Agents and the next step is a Passenger Service Agent. They are NOT necessarily senior agents if the exhibit the qualifications for the PSA position.
Please do yourself a favor and learn the difference between direct and non-stop. I’ve pointed out the difference several times.
First of all, you don’t “have to say”, you CHOSE to say. And second, you have NO IDEA what the conversation between the PSA, that’s what they’re called, and the passengers. It’s an assumption on your part. I was a PSA decades ago, and while the optics look poor, again, you have no idea what went on. Did the flight attendant follow up?
This is why I love think you shouldn’t be allowed to work as an FA or other frontline customer service job for more than 4 or 5 years. People run out of room to get better at their jobs quickly in those roles and then start to get worse!
I would love to see a study to show the correlation between seniority and service performance. I’m sure it’s highly negative
Very true. The best FAs have about 5-10 of experience. Then some get worse. Quite a few of them. Some become very terrible.
ATL Airtrain announcements are indeed confusing, They announce the next station name "D" when the doors open for the current stop "E"
That has always confused me also.
But keep in that the city of Atlanta is full of itself and incompetent!
The city is surrounded by miles and miles of bubbaland. So people in Atlanta have delusions of grandeur.
Wow. A lot of these comments read like they've been written by twenty-something incels who don't understand compassion and humanity, just their own narrow view of the situation. A Delta Red Coat doesn't have to produce fake tears and give bear hugs to grieving customers to do their job with sensitivity. A kind acknowledgement of the parents and asking if they need any additional assistance would have gone a long way in this case. The...
Wow. A lot of these comments read like they've been written by twenty-something incels who don't understand compassion and humanity, just their own narrow view of the situation. A Delta Red Coat doesn't have to produce fake tears and give bear hugs to grieving customers to do their job with sensitivity. A kind acknowledgement of the parents and asking if they need any additional assistance would have gone a long way in this case. The Red Coat here should have done more, as apparently their job suggests, but didn't.
Reading some of these comments tells me a Lot of whats wrong with this country.Pathetic that anyone would think that anything the FA did was wrong.Especially the comments acting like death in this country is inevitable and this situation was not an issue
WOW I am shocked by these responses as well. SO incredibly sad that some readers of this article have the compassion and empathy of a rock.
Your turn will come, smug folks, it will come
Nobody thinks the flight attendant was wrong for showing compassion for the family going through an obviously terrible time. Most people don't understand why the flight attendant went out of their way to impugn a fellow co-worker on a public forum when they had no insight into what actually happened and over whom
The person had no supervisory authority. Maybe the red coat actually did more for the family and she didn't see it?...
Nobody thinks the flight attendant was wrong for showing compassion for the family going through an obviously terrible time. Most people don't understand why the flight attendant went out of their way to impugn a fellow co-worker on a public forum when they had no insight into what actually happened and over whom
The person had no supervisory authority. Maybe the red coat actually did more for the family and she didn't see it? Maybe the red coat offered help and the family said "we are fine, we don't need your help". The point is, the fa didn't need to air the company's dirty laundry in the public like this. I don't think anybody expressed a lack of sympathy for what the family was going through.
It's heartbreaking that compassion isn't the default response by so many of the commenters, here. What is the payoff in being unkind? Serious question.
Heartlessness pretty much goes hand-in-hand with RWNJs and pretend/fake "Christians" who wouldn't know the teachings of Christ if He was literally yelling at them to "be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate."
They're too busy trying to take away healthcare and food programs from the poor to be decent; cruelty is easier for them.
I personally feel that the employee should not have shared this publicly. Who is she helping by doing so now? If she was off the aircraft to witness what was said then She could have walked them to the gate herself .
9,600 people die everyday in this country. If they couldn't provide the concierge service that the flight attendant demanded then so be it. It's cute though that flight attendants are willing to impugn the customer service skills of others.
I mean there was an opportunity to do more, but was this an explicit service failure? I don't think so. This family didn't actively ask for a Red Coat escort. If they didn't even know about this internal request, I doubt they would even have an issue.
The whole concept of surprise & delight or "Delta Difference" is that it only ever happens to a small subset of customers to begin with. There's probably a...
I mean there was an opportunity to do more, but was this an explicit service failure? I don't think so. This family didn't actively ask for a Red Coat escort. If they didn't even know about this internal request, I doubt they would even have an issue.
The whole concept of surprise & delight or "Delta Difference" is that it only ever happens to a small subset of customers to begin with. There's probably a dozen other passengers with comparable circumstances that day that could've been offered the same treatment and not been provided it.
Certainly though, the critique stands that if Delta does want to be a truly premium airline, this was a missed chance.
100% agree!
The Red Coat should have been a bit more demonstrative, rolling the eyes and saying "Not my job, dearie," just to help the FA understand that Red Coats are there to perform the minimum required duty to get a paycheck and not get fired.
The family was probably barely conscious of their surroundings - I have a friend who lost a child across the country and had to make that flight and he & his wife don't remember a minute of it. He says they were pretty much in shock. This "red coat" should be punished, that was an awful thing to do. It costs NOTHING to show some compassion.
I see little wrong with this situation. A little more should have been done, like to say "Your flight to Norfolk, flight 1234, is departing from gate A5, which is that way, taking the train to concourse A".
The family doesn't need a stranger in a Red Coat to hug them, shed fake tears, and mock cry. Just offer them some guidance and privacy. If the family looks ignorant (is that racist? or judging them...
I see little wrong with this situation. A little more should have been done, like to say "Your flight to Norfolk, flight 1234, is departing from gate A5, which is that way, taking the train to concourse A".
The family doesn't need a stranger in a Red Coat to hug them, shed fake tears, and mock cry. Just offer them some guidance and privacy. If the family looks ignorant (is that racist? or judging them on their fashion?), then better instructions or showing them the way may be appropriate. The Red Coat is not supposed to say "have a drink with me, you have time...how about a whiskey?"
If there was an extra Porsche, then driving them might have been a good show of efficiency.
"The family doesn't need a stranger in a Red Coat to hug them, shed fake tears, and mock cry."
Oh! I missed the part in the post where that was requested! Bad reading job, me! Do better!
"The Red Coat is not supposed to say "'have a drink with me, you have time...how about a whiskey?'"
Oh! I missed that part, too! Do better, me!
Exactly. These are people probably making $20 an hour tops and maybe with a heavy work load. Some of them might take their job seriously, some are doing it to survive. For $20 an hour you think you're going to get what? IT professionals with advanced degrees jamming your recruitment site?
Everyday thousands of people are traveling for some kind of tough situation. Sickness, death, loved ones being throw in jail, etc. It sounds...
Exactly. These are people probably making $20 an hour tops and maybe with a heavy work load. Some of them might take their job seriously, some are doing it to survive. For $20 an hour you think you're going to get what? IT professionals with advanced degrees jamming your recruitment site?
Everyday thousands of people are traveling for some kind of tough situation. Sickness, death, loved ones being throw in jail, etc. It sounds very "AOC" to have someone there from the airline to give them all a hug but that's not practical.
The poor family. What an absolutely dreadful thing to go through. At times like this, everyone should go the extra mile to help. As a nation, we have lost the ability to be compassionate.
"As a nation..." hahaha hahaha oh just say Trump made everyone MEAN again!!!
George Floyd would have helped that family ...right?
yikes
The true Red Coats difference ended with Northwest.
That is so true. A great example of the NW difference in these situations can be found in the HBO movie “Taking Chance”.
Delta should have either bought the Pan Am name or taken the Northwest name. Those Southerns thought the Delta name was so great but it isn't. Delta did have rights to use the Pan Am name for 1 year for flights to and from Europe but did not use those rights.
In fact, the big 3 airlines should be named United, TWA, and either Pan Am or Northwest. Instead, they are, in reality, Continental (or Texas International), America West, and Delta.
Would at least like to hear the Red Coat's side of the story as this only a brief one sided perspective. Did the Red Coat have another, even higher priority concurrent situation that needed attention ( among the infinite possibilities) ? Was the assistance offered but declined by the family ? If the F/A observed the Red Coat, couldn't she have offered to personally escort the party ( or did she have an immediate/delayed connection...
Would at least like to hear the Red Coat's side of the story as this only a brief one sided perspective. Did the Red Coat have another, even higher priority concurrent situation that needed attention ( among the infinite possibilities) ? Was the assistance offered but declined by the family ? If the F/A observed the Red Coat, couldn't she have offered to personally escort the party ( or did she have an immediate/delayed connection herself preventing this ) ? ... An incomplete scenario to pass judgment.
Undeniably, it is unfortunate that after the Covid early-out/purge of senior employees, the service level of some replacements can leave a lot to be desired these days....
I agree. The FA makes it sound like this red coat was a mute and is relegated to only using hand signals and gestures. I'm pretty sure actual words were spoken, which she seems to omit from her story.
Also, what exactly did she want? Like one of those electric carts to whisk them from gate to gate? Or have a red coat physically walk with them, board the train, then continue the walk to the next gate?
While I feel for any family that's going through something bad like this, I'm not really sure how to take this. Some random flight attendant wrote this on some random web site with a lot of emotion and few details. Honestly not sure this is worthy of a post at all. While I guess it would have been nice for the red coat to walk the family to the connecting gate, not sure if that's...
While I feel for any family that's going through something bad like this, I'm not really sure how to take this. Some random flight attendant wrote this on some random web site with a lot of emotion and few details. Honestly not sure this is worthy of a post at all. While I guess it would have been nice for the red coat to walk the family to the connecting gate, not sure if that's what they were hoping for? Sorry, I don't really see the big deal, and not knowing what the family thought about this (or even if they were expecting something or whether they knew that this was even going on or if they wanted help even) I don't really see this as an issue.
" Sorry, I don't really see the big deal..."
...and we'll all just hope that you don't lose two children to a car crash, with a third in critical condition in hospital.
The empathy runs deep with you.
Just kidding!
I feel horrible for the people as I mentioned, but also as I mentioned, were they expecting some big deal? Yes it would have been nice, but I dont see any evidence of any expectations having been made and then there being huge disappointment and devastation. At the end of the day, these people probably just went from one airplane to the next, like they expected to, not having any idea that any of this was happening.
Giving them plastic wings or walking with them is of no use unless they are unfamiliar with travel. What they need is assurance that the connecting flight is being held for them, which was not applicable in this case. Giving them advice on how to manage a brain bleed or how to choose a neurosurgeon is not what they need. Neither is asking "how do you feel" or "let me carry your bag" (causing them to worry if they need to pay a tip).
Ok Ben, I will be the first to bite …. are you deliberately seeking out Delta news? …. :-)
Are these people employed directly by DL or a third party contractor? I would tend to think the latter. Unfortunately, they're probably lowly paid and you get what you pay for.
@ George Romey -- Red Coats at hubs are always directly Delta employees.
The Red Coats are Delta payroll employees if the station is staffed by Delta. There are red coats in Delta vendored stations who are vendor employees. In this case, ATL, yes they would be Delta employees. But just to clarify as just because you see a red coat in a Delta operation doesn't mean they work for Delta in absolute case.