Recently in Delta Category

Many companies now require their people to use travel sites like Expedia or Orbitz to book travel. One of the companies I work with frequently, Hitachi Data Systems, still has their own travel department. Since I'm self-employed, I normally insist on making my own arrangements.

As much as people talk about how airlines dump on their customers, there are still some perks to be had by the fliers who stay monogamous. This morning was a good example of that. My original schedule for the coming week was to teach a four day class (HDS Enterprise Storage Foundations) in Santa Clara, CA. I usually fly into SFO when going to Silly Valley, even though you see the planes taking off overhead from SJC when you walk out the door of the HDS office. SJC doesn't do redeyes, so I drive the 30 or so miles back up 101 to the bigger airport.

The airfare for this particular trip was obscene--over $1300--because I booked it so late. The SFO-ATL redeye on Thursday nights is always a zoo to book. It's very popular, overbooks, and upgrades are impossible. In spite of all this, it gets me home at 8am on Friday, so it works, even when the plane is packed like a train in Mumbai.

All that went out the window at 2pm yesterday (Friday), when I got a call that an instructor is ill and can't teach a class in NYC. They could cover my class with a less-experienced instructor, so I'm now off to teach Enterprise Replication Fundamentals (a very fun class similar to one I taught a lot for EMC), in NYC. Changing the flights was a snap, I just called the "Delta Special Member Services" line and they put me on the 5:30pm nonstop, MSY-LGA, returning Friday morning on the nonstop.

When I woke up this morning and looked at Da Paper, I didn't like the track of TS Fay. It's not that I'm worried for the house or the city, but the combination of possible weather delays with the natural delays of flying into the New York City area give me great concerns. The 5:30pm flight looked really risky, so I called Delta back. There are a number of options for earlier flights that go through ATL, but all would cost more.

That's when the ticket agent on the other end made a fantastic suggestion. He suggested I just go to the airport early in the morning and do the "same day confirmed" strategy. In other words, go up to the ticket counter at, say 5am for the 6am flight and fly standby. Because it's same-day changes and I'm a "Platinum Elite," there will be no charge. Even if I didn't have that super-studly status with the airline, the change fee would still only be $25.

The moral of the story--loyalty to an airline still helps when plans change.

One of the reasons it's important for a road warrior to consistently fly one airline is to make sure you're noticed and appreciated by that airline. Well, as much as an airline can appreciate someone, that is. I nurture my relationship with Delta Air Lines by spending a lot of money with them, over $30,000 last year, and well on the way to a similar total with them next year.

There are a number of privileges and perks that one acquires as one moves up through the levels of an airline's preferred flier program, such as access to club rooms, free upgrades to first class, preferred seating selections in coach, etc., and one that's very important for getting home at the end of the week: standby priority.

Every computer company for whom I've taught for the last ten years always cautions students not to book too early a flight on the last day of class. Sure, they'll say, a lot of instructors will make an effort to get you out early, but some classes, particularly 2- and 3-day offerings, it just doesn't work that way. They'll tell folks to book flights after 6pm to make sure they don't get hung up. Having been a high school teacher, I'm well aware of the limits of the human attention span. It's not just adolescents, but adults that have trouble paying attention after 3-5 days of lectures. My students come to learn and take away knowledge that improves their skills as computer professionals, and when they hit saturation point, it's time to stop and send them home.

Does that sound like the rationalization of an experienced computer trainer who games the system to get home early? Maybe, but if you've taken one of my classes, you know it's true. I'll never book a return flight earlier than 5:30pm, but when we do wrap up early, I'm out. Unless the office is next to the airport, it's always better to get away from an office before rush hour. Airports are fairly self-contained, with food, drink, internet access, and other amenities. Better to be there than miles away.

Better still to get on a plane.

Changing same-day travel plans isn't all that hard. Airlines know that the best they can hope for on any given day is for good on-time arrival and departure percentages. They know that things can go horribly wrong in that department, so the more people they can move through the skies as early as possible in the day improves those percentages. If you're on a 6pm flight and you get to the airport at 2pm, your airline will be more than happy to send you out early if a seat is available. The sooner you're gone, the sooner you're no longer their responsibility.

Time was any flier could simply walk up to a ticket agent and request a change in a reservation, and they'd be accomodated as best as possible. As airlines struggle to cut costs, they discovered that one of the things they could change extra for was schedule changes. It's worth it to a lot of road warriors to pay $25-$50 to improve their chances of getting home that night. Of course, the higher level frequent fliers are usually exampt from those fees. Additional, the higher-ranking folks get standby priority.

Standby priority is one of the road warrior's best friends. It determines who is going to get those last three seats on the 3pm flight. There are a number of variables that factor into standby priority, with same-day travel disruptions being the most significant. Folks bumped from a delayed or cancelled flight will always get top priority. If it's a smooth-flying day, however, the road warrior pecking order kicks in. For Delta, that's Platinum, Gold, Silver. Platinum fliers go to the top of the "standby list," that display on the monitor near and dear the hearts of everyone trying to earn the privilege of going down the jetway on that particular flight. The folks on the top of that list are the ones who will move to the "cleared list," and gain the coveted boarding pass.

Since airports are indeed their own little worlds, road warriors would do well to give the standby process a shot. Unless you want to have a few cocktails before your flight and you're paying for them out of your own pocket, there's not much you're going to accomplish away from the airport, and even the Silver Medallion flier might get a seat on the early flight.

There's another benefit to trying for an earlier flight on travel day for the flier who checks one or more pieces of luggage. While the rules say that you're supposed to travel with your bag, most of the airlines don't bother with this detail. if you put yourself on the standby list for an earlier flight, your bag often travels on that flight, whether or not you get a seat. So, even if you can't get home before your scheduled flight time, your time at the departure airport is rewarded by finding your bag(s) waiting for you upon arrival.

You'd think that the minor detail of being in another country would complicate the process of traveling from YYZ back down to ATL, but the US and Canada have worked out a pretty good arrangement. As soon as you check in for a flight whose destination is the US, you walk behind the ticket agent and enter a line manned by US INS officers. Fliers "enter" the US while still in Canada. The process is the same as if you've just arrived at the international terminal of any major US airport, except you're not tired, stiff, and in need of a restroom.

The only problem I can find with this system is that the food selection once past all the legal stuff is pretty dismal. That wasn't a huge issue this trip, though, since I was trying to get out early. I arrived at YYZ just before 2pm, after dropping off the rental car. I was informed that I had a pretty good chance of getting a seat on the 3:20pm flight. That flight would arrive at ATL in time for me to get the 8:35pm ATL-MSY flight. I hopped the shuttle bus out to the satellite terminal where the Delta Connection/ASA CRJs park just as the flight began boarding. I checked in with the very-efficient (and very-cute) gate agent, Anne, and she was able to confirm me on the flight as well as the connecting ATL-MSY leg. She handled the re-routing of my checked bag, and I was walking outside to board the CRJ in no time flat.

The 2-hour flight down to Hartsfield-Jackson was peaceful, even though I was in seat 14A, the left-side window seat in the last row of the CRJ-200. I sat next to a petite lady so we didn't encroach on each other's space all that much. i dozed off right after takeoff, waking up just as we went on final approach.

The CRJ arrived on Concourse "C," just like a domestic ASA flight. In spite of being the absolute last passenger to deplane, I was one of the first through the jetway, because so many people had to wait for their gate-checked bags. The flight home was departing from "A," and the Crown Room agent on that concourse double-checked my first class upgrade status. When the ride is a B757, the odds of getting to sit up front are excellent. I flew home in seat 6A, glass of wine in hand, ready to be home, if only for a day.

I've been mulling over a situation that happened at the Delta ticket counter at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) last Friday, trying to decide if which of the two in the title happened.

Here's the story:

My son qualified for the Academic Games national tournament that was held this weekend in Orlando, FL. The New Orleans Academic Games league has been one of the serious competitors in Academic Games going all the way back to when I was in high school. Getting the opportunity to represent your school in a national competition is always a thrill for a kid, and certainly was for my 13-year old 8th grader. The group from New Orleans took chartered buses to Orlando that were scheduled to leave at 6pm. That presented a problem for my chronic over-achiever of a kiddo, because the Brother Martin High School Jazz Band had their spring concert at 7pm on Friday.

OK, being the wonderful parents that Mrs. YatPundit and I are, we were more than willing to make this work. The easy solution would be to let him play the gig Thursday night and put him on a plane to Orlando on Friday morning. This was made even easier when we learned that there was a Delta nonstop flight to MHO, and the teacher who is the Academic Games moderator for BMHS had already planned to take that flight. So, we booked the flight and that was that.

Until I got to the airport on Friday, that is.

The gig Thursday night was fantastic, and the other kids going to Orlando got off just fine. I drove kiddo to MSY about 10:15am for a 11:40am departure. We parked and went up to the First Class/Medallion line to check him in. The ticket agent was a black woman in her late 30s/early 40s. I handed her my driver's license and my "Platinum Medallion" card, explaining that I was checking in my son. The agent told me that she would have to charge me $100 extra because kiddo was only 13 and therefore had to be treated as an "unaccompanied minor."

I further explained to the agent that he wasn't going to be "unaccompanied," but rather that he was traveling with a teacher from his school. She firmly refused to bend on charging me the fee, saying that the only way that it could be avoided is if the teacher was here to escort kiddo through security.

At this point, I wasn't a happy camper. You see, I don't pay fees like this to Delta. I have "Platinum" frequent flier status with the airline. Last year, I spent over $30,000 with Delta, and I expect to spend at least as much this year. I expect them to waive fees like this as a courtesy to a good customer. This woman would simply not budge, and I was getting annoyed by it. Finally, I said we would call the teacher to see if he was already here or on his way, and take it from there. At this point, the agent got snippy with me, informing me that she was going on her break, and therefore was going to void out the current check-in of kiddo, and that we would have to start over with someone else when we got things straight.

We stepped back from the counter and off she went on her break. In the meantime, kiddo had run teacher and learned that he was indeed already checked in, through TSA, and at the gate. There was no way I could rationalize paying the hundred-buck fee. If a Delta employee had to be tasked with the responsibility of making sure kiddo got on the plane and then off into the hands of another responsible party, that would be one thing. But his teacher was going to be with him the entire time; all that was necessary was to have an adult take him through TSA.

By now kiddo's anxiety is starting to build up. It's 10:45am and departure is 11:40am. OK, time to bite the bullet and do what I have to do to make him at ease, even if it costs me a c-note. Back up to the counter we go, through the First Class line. The agent of our first encounter is still on break. To the left of that station is one agent who is servicing the regular passenger check-in line, and to the right was another agent who was one of two servicing the "self-service" computer kiosks. Ten minutes go past, and the self-service agent is not only ignoring us, but is actually handling customers who are leaving the regular line and jumping over to the kiosks. After 15 minutes had passed, I've no doubt that my face reflected my annoyance of being kept waiting this long.

Finally the agent working the regular check-in process waves to us to come over to his station. he's a white guy, early 30s. I repeat the process as before, handing him my license and platinum card, explaining that the teacher is going to accompany kiddo on the flight. He printed up kiddo's boarding pass and attached a claim check to his bag. With no mention of rules, fees, or anything, the agent asks, "Would you like to walk your son down to the gate?" I said, "yes, indeed." He took my license again and printed me up a pass to get through TSA.

The contrast between the two agents was stunning, even to me, and I fly on Delta 30+ weeks a year. I'm very much used to having my butt kissed by Delta employees, even the frazzled, stressed, overworked (but wonderful) gate agents at ATL. They see that "Platinum Medallion" on my boarding pass and they know that I'm a regular who understands the system.

This brings me back to my original question: was I the victim of bad customer service or the benefit of white privilege? The first agent was a black female. The second agent was a white male. Clearly, if the rules were as firm as the female agent made them out to be, then the male agent committed a serious breach of the rules. That's not the sort of thing one good ol' boy does for another, particularly given how fickle TSA folks can be. I can see if they cut me a break because they kept us waiting so long the second trip to the counter, though. I'd like to think that I was treated the way I was because of my customer status, not my race.

The announcement that Delta and Northwest will indeed merge is wonderful news for me. Here's why:

1. The combined airline will be Delta. I don't have to mess around with my SkyMiles, Crown Room membership, Platinum status, etc. Northwest doesn't have a World Club at MSY. Even though World Club and Crown Room memberships are reciprocal, flying on Northwest means leaving from Concourse A when Delta is over on D. The merger will most likely mean that Continental will move off of Concourse D to make room for the Northwest flights.

2. Singapore on Delta. My last trip to Singapore was on Northwest. There was just no way to make it work on Delta, even going east to Paris and trying Air France. It was a great trip, but a Delta trip to Asia means I get the 100% Platinum bonus.

3. Memphis instead of ATL. Delta suspended hub operations at DFW when they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005. The storm had already forced major operational cutbacks for Delta out of MSY, nost notably the loss of most of the flights to the Salt Lake City hub. That's meant I have to go to ATL to get to the west coast, making for longer flights. With the merger, hopping up to Memphis, then north to Chicago, or out to the west coast will shorten my overall flying time. Additionally, it's faster getting to Tokyo/Narita from Detroit than Atlanta.

4. Delta stays healthy. Air France, the other big SkyTeam partner is reportedly willing to invest over $700million in the merged airline. Until something can be done by the government to settle down fuel prices, the airline will need that outside cash influx.

5. Delta employees are the best! It's definitely a southern charm thing. Give me Delta pilots, flight attendants, and gate agents any day. And of all these folks the folks who staff the Crown Room Clubs at SAN, SFO, ORD, ATL, BOS, and (last but certainly never least) MSY are worth their weight in gold.

I'm sure I'll come up with other reasons this is a good merger as the details come out.

and you can dance to it...but you better not, because if you're standing up during the Delta Air Lines safety video, you'll get fussed at by the flight attendants:
this is a MUCH better video. For openers, they've dumped the cheesey easy-listening music for something with a beat. The pilot looks much younger than in the previous video. The grey-haird guy always made me think of Peter Graves in "Airplane." And the flight attendant (who really is a Delta flight attendant) is hawt.