A mother of three is asking for answers after being separated from her family on a Delta Air Lines flight that went out with over 100 open seats.
Mother Booted Off Delta Flight Due To Apparent Technical Error, But Erred In Booking New Ticket Out Of Desperation
Let’s review the scenario and then we’ll talk about how Delta and the family handled it:
- The Smith family (husband, wife, three young kids) were traveling from Orlando (MCO) to Winnipeg (YWG) via Minneapolis (MSP) on Delta Air Lines
- When Shannon Smith checked in online for the flights, she saw her reservation on DL2504 (MCO-MSP) and DL1663 (MSP-YWG) had been canceled, but the reservations remained intact for her husband and children
- Smith found herself rebooked on flights (same routing) the day after her family
- Per Smith, Delta never informed Smith about the change to her itinerary
- Unable to miss additional days at work, she booked herself on Air Canada home, leaving that night
- The rest of the Smith family traveled as planned the following day and found that their MCO-MSP flight had capacity for 197 passengers but ended up carrying less than 74
- It was later determined that an unexplained system glitch canceled over 100 passengers set to be on that flight to Minneapolis
- Smith has sought a full refund for her Air Canada flight ($1,024.33) and also claimed cash compensation under Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR)
- Delta has denied the request, instead offering vouchers for future travel (for all family members) as well as refunding her ticket – its says it has “not violated any passengers’ rights and this does not follow under Canadian regulations.”
My thoughts are as follows:
- Delta clearly messed up here. DL2504 was canceled due to weather the day before and somehow the system seemed to cancel out a number of passengers on DL2504 the following day, even though the flight was scheduled to operate as normal
- But I do not think the request the pay for the Air Canada flight or offer cash compensation under APPR is reasonable considering Shannon did not actually allow Delta to correct the problem
- Instead, it appears she panicked, needlessly bought another pricey ticket, and flew home
- I don’t blame her for ensuring she could get home, but it seems clear that had she simply called Delta or showed up at the airport, she would have quickly been rebooked on her original flights
- Absent that minimal effort to restore the original booking, it seems to me that Delta is not fully at fault – there is no ideation she tried to reach out to Delta to deal with this before buying the Air Canada ticket
- It also is not clear to me how she could have been moved but not the rest of the family unless she was on a separate PNR/reservation
CONCLUSION
This is an instructive lesson in how to react to a flight cancellation that does not make sense. It seemed clear early on that there was a technical error here (because only one of five reservations was canceled) and it seems to me the best way forward in these sorts of situations is to give the carrier a call and try to resolve it (before buying a new ticket on another airline and then demanding that be paid for in addition to the refund).
I’m sympathetic to Shannon Smith here, but not fully sympathetic. Airlines should reasonably be given a chance to make the situation right…it is not clear that happened here (and Newsweek misses this point).
image: Smith Family
Tim Dunn will argue this is why Delta can devalue loyalty at will. Just because they provide a superior product that people want regardless.
Sorry, Tim. They are all the same.
My opinion is Delta ought to pay 50% of the substitute Air Canada ticket and 100% of her cancelled ticket , Delta made the mistake , and harmed a family trip . The cancelled passenger is not experienced in fighting airline employees , and can be half-forgiven for panicking and buying the substitute ticket . Delta’s mistake caused her distress and anxiety , and ought to meet her half-way .
After all , the paid ticket was a contract .
So the airline had contracted to transport her from A to B on day C.
For what ever reason the airline cancelled her ticket on day C and instead told her to travel on day C+1.
Good customer service would have been to rebook here onto the next available flight from any airline on that day, or offer some cash compensation and offer her a flight with the same airline at a later date. And, this should have been the passenger’s choice.
You shouldn’t need to fight and complain to be treated fairly.
The fact that it turns out that her initial ticket was cancelled in error is of no consequence.
They need to stump up 100% for the new ticket.
I just don’t understand how American airlines are allowed to employ such one sided terms and conditions. The passenger couldn’t have just rocked up a day early or late and still expected to be accommodated, so why can the airline essentially do the same thing to her?
Delta makes stupid decisions. I shared I was flying to London last week and Delta One seats were being sold for over $15k. I paid $3,800 for coach since I was not going to pay that much for a business travel. And I knew they had several open seats in Delta One on that flight. When I went to check in 24 hours before my flight, the app offered me to upgrade from coach to Delta One for $599 on the MSP-LHR flight. It was a non-brainer so I did. The Delta One section was full on that flight as many others may have taken the advantage of that offer. Two days later when I went to check in for my return flight, Delta One was showing 16 empty seats but not offer to upgrade. When I got to the airport, I asked if I could pay to upgrade to Delta One. The answer was “we do not offer paid upgrades at the airport.” I told the agent I had upgraded on my incoming flight but she ignored me. Well, guess what? Flight took of with 16 empty seats in Delta One. Someone does not know how to maximize profit on those flights.
Did you consider doing what we advised the gal to do? Call up a Delta agent, on the phone, and see what they can do? That’s generally what I would do regardless if I got an unhelpful gate or ticket counter agent.
Another option, pro tip: Walk a few gates down, quietly, and find someone who looks cool and see if they can help you. That helped tremendously when my wife and I got a rerouting in Frankfurt…
Regarding the gal who booked her own ticket with AC to get home: Delta should just give her that money back, without the refund of her existing ticket (since she did get home), and call it a day.
This was at LHR so not a Delta hub. I tried during check in so nothing I could differently there. It wasn’t a big deal, day flight so I wasn’t going to sleep but work. My point was that it was Delta’s choice to leave money on the table where they could have easily filled those 16 empty seats at basically sunk cost.
There’s a reason for the woman’s actions. In Canada , it’s often like a dictatorship so complaining is sometimes futile. That’s a possible reason she immediately booked on another airline.
Justin Trudeau is a bully.
What a strange and displaced angry response about a lady having difficulties with her flight reservation. But it’s because….Canada is a dictatorship ?
I don’t understand the victim blaming here?
The airline cancelled her ticket, why should she then contact them to and plead with them on the off chance that it was a mistake? Delta clearly messed up big time and should do the right thing- pay for the new ticket and offer some compensation for the stress.
In the UK / EU she would have been entitled to rebooking on another airline from the get go. But in the land of customer service delta simply gets to screw her.
Yes . Delta owns the problem .
I agree she should have made an effort to reach out to Delta before going off program. When I’ve found myself in situations with a cancelation, or a flight that is canceled, then not, then canceled again, then reinstated (like a UA flight I had this year that they did desperately try to salvage because it was last one of the night), I may come up with a Plan B, but nothing that cannot be undone. Especially if there is a wait to speak with the airline, I’ll book something with miles or a Southwest ticket, or something refundable (in the case above for me, a one-way walk-up refundable on AA was only $350) as a placeholder in case I need it, and before others get the idea.
Delta offering travel vouchers is appropriate compensation, in my opinion. If they had told her to pound sand or refused to rebook her, then I would disagree.
Logically, if your reservation was cancelled for no known reason, wouldn’t reaching out to Delta be the first thing a person would do?
Logically , yes . However , she may have been distressed , and did what she needed to return home . She may have been fearful of an unhelpful clerk and an unhelpful corporation . I have had situations when I merely left without risking a confrontation , especially when I needed to do something far more important : return to my family and job , for example . Delta ought to grovel before her and beg her forgiveness .
Delta’s software for moving passengers to different flights is inexcusable.
My wife and I were traveling to Italy 2 years ago with 3 other couples, coming from different locations. We all scheduled reasonable flights to meet at the Atlanta airport to be seated near each other in Premium+ for the international flight.
Until Delta started changing things.
They changed BOTH the domestic and international legs for my wife and I putting us into Italy too late to catch our scheduled ground transportation.
Another couple traveling from the West Coast was moved to a redeye with TWO layovers, rather than direct to Atlanta like they booked. (This is inexcusable!!!)
Here’s my problem – The flights we all originally booked were NOT full and were still on schedule. If a flight was canceled or something, I could understand.
There was NO good reason to move us to different flights.
After MANY, MANY hours of Delta not giving a damn responding to emailing executive contacts, customer service, online chats, waiting on hold for literal hours, and Twitter DM’s, we eventually got back on the flights we originally booked. Even then it was with foot-dragging and zero empathy.
It sounds similar to what happened to this woman. Klint raises the real possibility that the woman didn’t give Delta the opportunity to remedy the problem. Personally, from my experience, I’m not convinced it would have helped until long after they all got home.
A nice illustration of why we need a stronger version of EC261 here in the USA.
sounds about right. The worst US airline. Except for all the others…
I would have called, but I don’t know that an inexperienced traveler would do that. And I’m always hearing experienced travelers recommending self-help for IRROPs and asking for compensation later anyway. Add to that, call waiting times can get so ridiculous as to be an exercise in futility (maybe she tried to call and hung up after being on hold for a half an hour – I would). On top of that, this was DL’s error. So her actions seem reasonable to me. DL should pay. Of course, I might have to file claims with the credit card company, a CC travel insurance claim and the DOT and fight for each one, but when you are asking for fairness, persistence often pays.
The most important element here, I believe, is Matthew’s last point: It is extremely unlikely that any airline would have moved only one passenger on a multi-passenger ticket. Therefore, it is most likely that there were separate tickets involved, and it is always dangerous to travel with family or other traveling companions on separate tickets. If nothing else, it is easy for them to be separated by the airline’s computer when seats have to be moved, and at worst, it is possible that they will be separated into different flights. I would be extremely surprised if this didn’t involve separate tickets, and the lady in question will probably learn that it’s never a good idea to do that because she is just asking for trouble.