Storm Causes Delta Meltdown In Atlanta, Passengers Trapped On Planes For Hours

This was an absolute complete shit show. I am a very understanding person a very calm person and I never got mad during this whole incident even though my flight with Delta was canceled flying out of here and they rebooked us. We ended up missing our entire Sunday of our trip because we couldn’t get another flight out until late that night we almost missed picking up a rental car due to the only flight they could put us on was a late one, but I accepted it and I moved on didn’t get mad about it wasn’t their fault wasn’t our fault don’t know what happened. Things happen, however, on our way back from our trip we landed in Atlanta right before the storms hit we got delayed expected we got delayed again Fair that’s still expected. We were delayed again and again, to be expected would rather be safe than sorry however, finally hours went by. We were told that we were going to board our plane now they finally had a crew we got on the plane we were on the plane for probably 30 to 45 minutes before the pilot had to come on and tell us that he was timing out and unfortunately we were all going to have to get off of the plane when originally the pilot had come on and told us we were gonna be taking off after maintenance was done doing their check well 20 minutes later he came back on and said unfortunately maintenance was not getting the check done in time before he timed out so they ended up canceling so we had to get off the plane. I would like to be very clear this was not the pilot‘s fault. We spent the night in the airport because Delta employees in Atlanta airport were absolutely cruel and I am just gonna say I’ve seen this several different times not just during this scenario. My husband and I have sat back and watched Delta employees treat all of their passengers like complete garbage in that Airport. People were actually staying very calm. We were standing in a line for over four hours to get rebooked, we all accepted it. It was fine. Everybody around us was understanding. Hey this sucks but you know it is what it is. It’s out of their control. It’s out of our control. We’re gonna stand in this line. We’re gonna get rebooked as we stood in this line. We watched several several Delta employees at the gates at the service desk flight attendant treat their passengers like complete garbage when the passengers were being nothing but understanding and nice to them. They truly were. I did not see anyone that I observed being right or throwing any kind of a fit, except for the delta employees they were frustrated at us for something that was not our fault just like it was not their fault so why did the passengers who were paying and ended up being the one stranded with nowhere to go being treated like garbage when the passengers were being nothing but nice to the employees I witnessed this myself for almost 28 hours in this airport. I also witnessed on the plane that the pilot was trying to get maintenance to finish up for him so he could takeoff a passenger having a medical emergency. Passengers around him Were trying to get the flight attendant to come to him to help him because he was having a diabetic issue and he couldn’t get off the plane and everyone else was already almost off, except for the back end of it and the flight attendant refused to even go check on him or talk to him she stood in the back of the plane instead tell somebody else tell somebody upfront and that’s all she kept repeating wouldn’t even walk toward him. She was only maybe eight steps away from him. She wouldn’t even check on the man the guy behind him who I was sitting behind, opened up his energy, Red Bull drink, and gave it to this man who is having a diabetic episode because the flight attendant would not even attend to him or even check on him. The passengers went and got him whatever they could get him that they had on them Red Bulls orange juice, whatever they could give this man to help him because the flight attendant we’re not concerned didn’t care about him. Didn’t check on him. The one even said tell somebody else that’s how these passengers got treated during this so overall I don’t think it’s about the cancellations. Yeah people were frustrated probably yeah they missed you. Know appointments or vacations or whatever you know we were frustrated, but there was nothing we could do about it. We accepted it. We knew it wasn’t the employee’s faults just like it was not our fault but delta treated all these passengers and again I was in this airport for over 48 hours during this timeframe and I watched Delta treat these passengers like garbage. And not a one of these passengers that I witnessed being treated this way, raise their voice or got irate or said anything bad to any of these delta employees the delta employees were just straight up, cruel, specially, especially to the elderly people that didn’t understand what was going on and couldn’t use the technology on their phone to follow what was happening I watched so many elderly people not know what to do because nobody would help them. My husband and I and another couple started helping these older people by checking flights for them and check and telling them where to go and giving them directions because the Delta employees if you walked up to one even if they weren’t busy at the time because there wasn’t no flights going nowhere so they weren’t really doing anything. They would just wave you away and say everybody’s got questions go away. We don’t wanna hear it. that’s what I’m frustrated about. I’m not mad that I got stuck in the airport. I’m not mad that my flight got canceled my second flight. I’m not mad that I got rebooked on a late late flight that I really would prefer not to take and missed a whole day of my vacation I’m not mad about all these things I can get over them very very easily cause I understand and I empathize and I sympathize so I get it. I understand. I’ve worked in customer service. I understand when someone’s being irate with you, and you’re trying to explain things to them that you end up, trying to having to match their energy that is not what was happening. These passengers were just being very calm actually for the situation and the Delta employees were the problem. They were absolutely rude. I will never Fly Delta again and I will avoid Atlanta airport at all cost anytime that I can because these Delta employees in the Atlanta airport were absolutely ridiculous. Would not even help a man having a medical issue treating elderly people that could barely walk that we’re having to stand in these lines for four and five hours had nowhere to go no hotels available even if you paid for it yourself because Delta sure as hell wasn’t going to even if you paid for it yourself there was nowhere to go. These elderly people were sitting in these chair chairs just trying to figure out how they were gonna get home and the Delta employees could’ve cared less they didn’t care about anyone. They really did not care about anyone. I even heard one employee say I’m going home. It’s my time to go home. My eight hours are up. Well it must be nice that you have somewhere to go while all these people in here are stranded and all they wanna do is ask a couple of questions and you tell them pretty much that they could F off. .

My data point on this was that my ONT-ATL on Sat was cancelled. The objectionable part was that: 1) I was not automatically rebooked and the responsibility was dumped on me to figure out a way home. Delta only offered to refund me if I didn't rebook myself within 24 hours?! 2) I manually found a flight out of BUR (after checking all of the half dozen SoCal airports) with a much longer drive coming from the Indian Wells tennis tournament 3) I tried to call into the main line (not SkyPriority after recently dropping from Plat Medallion to Gold to now Silver because DL never upgrades with their aggressive first class monetization), I was told my wait would be >2 hours AND they disabled their usual option to call me back??? 4) I also tried to chat first with the AI bot then waited for a CSR multiple times to connect but no CSR ever joined and my chat session kept getting cut off even after trying to keep the chat active with the occasional "hello"??? Bottom line, it was a total crap show. Thanks for nothing DL!!!

Was stuck at ATL for 20 hours, and was routed to 8 different gates, loaded on a plane, waiting 1.5 hours, unloaded from plane.......was horrific!

TD, “…focus on the big picture.” Says Mr. Change-the-subject. Check the title of this article. Word is DL is still having trouble with its clunky IT/process that offers crews premium pay and they withdrew a pilot-favorable contractual provision that restores days off due to reassignments. Sounds like the GE guy is bringing old school labor relations to DL. What could go wrong? Six sigma anyone?

Oil has blasted through $110/bbl, just about doubling in less than a week. I can assure you that execs in airline offices are not going to fixate trying to find fault in someone else's operation over the weekend, esp. since not one of them had a flawless performance. but since there is no shortage of argumentative simpletons that infest this site, it is a given that they will keep arguing until their "favorite" company execs announce drastic cuts - which ARE certain to come. Five years is as long as the airline industry gets between black swan events. This day was bound to happen; some airlines understand that and prepare for the downturn while others think that what the US economy experienced for the past couple years would last forever. There will be lots of the proud that will fall hard.