Intro
HEY GUYS! And welcome to this week’s blog post. This is post number 3 of the Delta Comfort + series. I won’t faf around and let’s jump right in and get back from where we left off last week. Last we were waiting on board the aircraft, it had been approximately 3 and ½ hours since we boarded and we had just had a Delta agent come on board to let us know that the terminal was closed and there were no staff to attend to us and deal with us.
Waiting for staff
While waiting on board the aircraft, many cabin crew began apologising to passengers and were trying to keep everyone calm. It was a pretty impossible situation, it’s almost 1am, no one has slept, everyone is tired, miserable, frustrated, hungry, and so disappointed in the service and experience thus far.
Hotels & Meal Vouchers
Mercifully, after exactly 4 hours of waiting since boarding, the crew were given the green light to allow passengers to deboard. No preference was given to Delta One passengers, it was more of a race to get out. I rushed out first to try and get into the line first, my fellow passengers waiting behind for a wheelchair. Once I entered the terminal, the airline had their Helpdesk setup with 5 attendants and stanchions to make neat lines. Before I actually got to the front of the line, I received a text message and multiple emails with links to claim my food vouchers and select a hotel. I was quick to choose the Radisson Hotel. I have stayed there before and have always been satisfied with my stay. I was able to snag a room and received a confirmation which I could produce to the hotel staff. I also managed to claim a total of two food vouchers, (this is supposed to cover dinner and breakfast) which each were for the value of $12, giving me a total of $24 to cover two meals.
No Wheelchairs
With that, I left the line and went to see where my fellow passengers were, turns out Delta and Atlanta Airport services could not provide a wheelchair at this time of the night and so all passengers in need of assistance had to walk off the plane and find a wheelchair lying around in the terminal. How ridiculous is that?
Train Drama
Tired, frustrated, hungry and desperate for sleep, we gave up looking for a wheelchair and limped over to the underground trains to transfer terminals to the Hotel Bus pickup. Hotel shuttle service is available in the Ground Transportation Center/West Curb area. The West curb is located outside between the Domestic North and Domestic South Terminals and is accessible by using the W-1 or W-2 door. So to get there from the International Terminal, you have to use the train which, surprise surprise……is not fully operational after midnight.
The train only successfully transferred us to two terminals before we were required to get off and walk the rest. By the way, the distance between two concourses is ¼ of a mile, and there are a total of 7 concourses, going from the international terminal to the Domestics end requires you to cross all. You can do the maths and figure out how much of walking that is for a disabled passenger at around 2am.
Interesting Comments from the Pilot
Something else that was rather interesting and is one of my core complaints from this experience so far is the following incident I witnessed while on board the train. The captain of our flight happened to be on board with us and was rather friendly with some American passengers. He was explaining how to get to the Hotel shuttle area and then continued talking about how frustrated he was with the delay. He explained to the passengers that the maintenance crew arrived extremely late to the aircraft, did not work very efficiently or quickly and also mentioned that while waiting, he called their Delta Operations call line to let them know what was going on and get them to cancel the flight and begin preparing for passengers, however he was left ON-HOLD for 2 hours before someone picked up and began sorting out the issues.
Why in the world is the Captain of a flight being left on hold with the airlines direct Operations control team, and for 2 hours, Is this the real efficiency of the Delta, at the airlines hub airport. This flight was departing from Atlanta, Delta’s main hub, the home of where all their operations lie, this is supposed to be where customers experience the airlines best, their most efficient service, the most on time departure, the best of the best.
All I can see is the best they can give is putting their own staff on hold for 2 hours, underfeeding passengers, misinformed crews, slow service, lack of staff and terrible delay management. This is Delta’s best.
Hotel Bus Pickup
Getting back to where I was, after 30 minutes of walking, searching and navigating, I finally located the Hotel Bus pickup……..which was overcrowded, turns out we were not the only flight who got cancelled that night. I met and greeted multiple other passengers who claimed their flights were cancelled and they had been waiting for close to 2 hours, a lot less than us, but still pretty long.
Radisson Hotel Rejection
The Radisson Hotel Shuttle is advertised to run every 30 to 40 minutes. I was unlucky to arrive at the station about 2 minutes after the bus had left, this meant I would be waiting for 45 minutes for the next one. I was rather disappointed with this wait as Google Maps showed that the hotel is only a 9 minute drive. My other complaint is that I saw many other hotel shuttles pass by 3 or 4 times, they were practically laughing at us since we had been waiting for so long. Once our bus finally arrived, the driver packed in the bags and off we went. 10 minutes later we pulled in and began collecting our bags.
A staff member ran out asking if there was anyone who was a single person and only needed one room. One woman from our group of approximately 12 people, made herself seen and the hotel staff member then explained that she is the only one he has a room available for and explained to us that we would be sent to their “partner” hotel with their bus. Infuriated by this news, our entire group began arguing as we had reservation confirmations on our phones showing that a room was waiting for us at this hotel. His answer was, and I quote word for word: “A Delta Hotel confirmation means nothing, you’re just a code we punch into our systems and assign a room. It’s the same for all hotels”. Too tired to continue arguing, everybody gave up, climbed back into the bus and began the drive 500 metres down the road to the Holiday Inn Express Atlanta Airport-College Park, an IHG Hotel.
Holiday Inn Express Atlanta Airport-College Park
We were greeted by a single clerk behind the check in desk. He did not bother to smile, make eye contact or stand in one spot. During the entire time communicating with him, he wandered around behind the desk and would make eye rolls at certain things we said. We explained what had happened at the previous hotel and he explained that he would not be able to help us for another 30 minutes as his computer’s check-in system was updating. We didn’t bother arguing and just waited. Unsurprisingly, 40 minutes later, it was done and he began assigning us rooms. While waiting, some other passengers inquired about where we could use our food vouchers. The gentleman explained that we could only use it to buy from the hotel’s mini convenience store and they should be using some of the voucher to pay for our breakfast but he is going to include it for free. Firstly, in their convenience store, there isn’t any real food, just junk snacks and drinks. Secondly, on Google, it is clearly advertised as free breakfast at this Holiday Inn Express, I could not believe he tried to fool us with that. This entire trip had been filled with ridiculous claims, unbelievable inefficiency and I honestly was hoping it was all a bad dream.
Once we were assigned our room, we headed up, opened the door and stepped straight into a huge water puddle. The entire bathroom roof was leaking water and it had flooded the entire room. Let me remind you that this is at 3am, we are exhausted, hungry, frustrated and this situation could not get worse. I headed back downstairs, stood in the line again, explained what happened and in two minutes he assigned me another room. The second room I got to, everything seemed fine, however the AC was either stuck in extreme cold, or could be turned off, the heating function did not work. Mind you this is Atlanta, the temperatures were ranging from 2 to 6 degrees celsius that night. Tired from fighting, we turned the AC off, put on jackets, got under the covers and went to bed.
Hotel Breakfast
The next morning revealed the filth of the room. The tables were dusty, there was someone’s nail lying on the carpet next to the bed, the bathroom was old and the curtains had a stain on them. I was the first to rise, so I headed down to grab some coffees for my roommates and see what the breakfast looked like. It was satisfactory, it had the basic items to get you going. For drinks, there were two juices, some milks in the fridge, Hot water, a selections of coffees, some tea bags, pastries and baking, a pancake machine, a waffle machine, grits, a few fruits, bagels, breads, some scrambled eggs, Turkey sausages and some yoghourts. It’s not fancy, big or great at all, it is just enough to get you going for the day.
Being as hungry as we were, we ate like a pack of wolves and felt so much more refreshed. We then headed upstairs to start showering and get ready for the day.
Being Re-Booked
On the way up, we all received emails and notification on our Delta apps stating that we had been rebooked on that night’s flight to Johannesburg, BUT IN ECONOMY!
We were all shocked, we had paid for Delta Premium Select, especially considering how long this flight was going to be and the fact that we had a wheelchair passenger with us that needed to be in a comfortable seat. Why? Who? How? When? I had so many questions.
Calling Delta
While taking turns to shower, I decided to get on a call with Delta’s customer service to get an update on my travel plans. Why was I downgraded? Why am I not being compensated? Why is this airline so useless?
After getting through their automated menu service, I got put on hold for the next 11 minutes. Once an agent picked up, I explained what had happened the night before and the emails and notifications I received telling me that I had been rebooked on to that night’s flight but in Economy and I was not satisfied with this as I specifically booked and paid for a Premium Select Seat. This agent was the first patient, understanding and friendly Delta staff member I had interacted with in the last 24 hours.
She listened to my entire explanation and calmly explained that unfortunately the airline had squashed yesterdays and today’s passengers on to one flight. The flight was completely full, not a single seat was available in any cabin and this was the only way we could make the flight. She also mentioned that Delta will give us some form of compensation, either a refund from some of the money we paid or a compensation through miles and this would reflect after the flight.
She then proceeded to offer us the option of exploring other routes with partner airlines. I pursued this option, only for her to reveal to me that Delta could not offer a Premium Select seat on any partner airline, only Economy.
I then asked if she could reposition our seats as we had all been split apart and were all given middle seats, all we wanted was to sit in the same row or at least close to each other. She explained that this was also not possible as this is up to the gate agent before boarding the flight.
Her calmness and friendliness had brought me some peace but I was still so outraged by this entire experience, I had a discussion with her about my wheelchair passenger, the mismanagement from the night before, the terrible hotel experience and she apologised profusely and agreed that we were having a terrible experience. She suggested that I should send a complaint through the online Help Center. She said this was my best option as I could provide proof through screenshots and I have a high chance of getting a reply back. That pretty much concluded our call and I immediately headed to the website to start writing. I submitted my complaint with all the information laid out. More than 3 months have passed and I still have not received any reply or comment.
Getting Refreshed for the New Flight
After getting a refreshing shower, putting on some new clothes, getting re-energized from breakfast, we headed out with an Uber to do some shopping and get a proper meal…..at our OWN COST. After a good lunch and pampering at the restaurant, we headed to the airport to get checked in again.
At the check in counter, it was back to business, an unfriendly gate agent with an attitude. He was unsuccessful in printing us boarding passes with seat assignments as it turned out, his system showed we were on a standby list and did not actually have seats on board. He said to go through and the gate agent would get us seats. Tired from fighting, I headed through and the wait in the terminal began again.
Gate Change’s
About 3 hours before the flight began, there was an alert of a gate change within concourse F. We began the walk to find seats closer to the gate and were greeted by a swarm of passengers surrounding our new departure gate. Everyone was standing around like the famous “Gate-lice”. And with good reason, there seemed to be more people than you could fit on the airplane. With 2 hours to go until departure, the passenger had already begun forming a line and THREE gate agents finally arrived. They immediately made a loud announcement telling all passengers to sit down…….which everyone ignored. They then explained they needed passengers to move back so that they could work with the passengers who needed seats assignments, new boarding passes and disabled passengers.
Gate Agents
Finally the gate lice gave in and they began doing their thing. After about 15 minutes and having only dealt with 5 passengers, one of the gate agents came on the PA to announce that this was a completely full flight, with zero seats available and they cannot re-assign seats, whatever you get is what you get. They continued their processes and eventually my group were all assigned their seats. We were split all over the place in random middle seats. We just hoped and prayed that we could make a couple swaps with some passengers to get closer to one another.
Boarding
Eventually boarding began and with everyone so eager to get going, it went pretty fast. With such a packed flight though, there were some serious issues on board with everyone fighting for the overhead luggage compartments. The cabin crew were making an effort to help passengers reposition their bags and get it all in. The other issue I faced was the fear of my checked luggage not being on board. Multiple passengers in the cabin had been whispering to each other that they were not receiving any notifications that their bags were on board, while others were receiving. I was very concerned, the cabin crew advised us to wait and said she would call the gate agent. Thankfully, once boarding had been completed, the gate agent came on board to let us know that they have tried their best to get everyone’s bags on board and it may just be the app having a hiccup, however if any passenger wished to get off the flight because they suspect their bag is not on board, they are more than welcome to. They gave us 5 minutes to think and in the end, nobody actually got off. With that sorted, we pushed back 10 minutes ahead of schedule, made it to the runway, took off and were officially bound for South Africa.
The New Seat Reviews
Now, this was supposed to be a review of Delta’s A350 Premium Plus Seat, and we will eventually get to it, however for today unfortunately, we only get to see the Economy seat.
Delta: Main Cabin – Economy
The Delta Main-Cabin/Economy-cabin is set in a 3-3-3 configuration. The seats have a width of 44cm and a pitch of 79-81cm. Yeah, this is the REAL airBUS!
The seat materials were fresh and clean. Pretty comfortable, the leather along with its neat stitching make for a comfortable and classy fit to the cabin. The seat cushioning is sufficient, I think it lacks a little in terms of back support, but it makes up for it with the adjustable headrest that folds on the left and right of your head. There is an armrest on the right of each seat that folds up if necessary.
The overall quality of the seat is just average. It’s nothing great, and it could be a lot worse, you get what you paid for. The cabin aesthetics are pretty nice with the mood lighting, blue, white and red theme and air feeling above your head.
The In-Flight entertainment system is the same as almost all other Delta flights. The screen is sufficient in size, clear, bright enough and can rotate to a more comfortable position. There is no remote unfortunately. There is a humongous selection of movies and series, trust me you will not be getting bored, there are some games, music and a flight map for your information.
A big let down from Delta is the fact they opted to not fit the A350 with a nose wheel and tail cam camera and therefore you have none of these views in your IFE. This is a huge attraction for the Airbus A350, it’s the iconic feature and is something I always look forward to. It also is great for middle seat, aisle and middle row passengers as they get a small view of the outside while sitting away from a window. I was really disappointed and in all honesty, if I knew I could fly another airline’s A350 in Economy for the same price, I would take the other airline, that’s how much I value this feature, especially as an Avgeek.
There is a USB connection underneath your screen, I used it for my charging. There is also a wall plug in style slot in front of your legs, underneath the seat in front of you, at least this one is better placed compared to the Boeing 737. Next to the USB slot under your screen, there is the headphone jack. Delta provides some basic earphones, they were comfortable, basic and did the job for the flight.
The tray table is compact, foldable, slides forwards and backwards and is sturdy enough for your laptop. It is a little too far forward in my opinion. However I think this might be the right distance for some passengers with larger bellies, hehehe.
In terms of legroom, I am 175cm and there was just enough space for me. My knees were maybe 6 cm from the seat in front of me and I could stretch all the way out in a straight line. If you do happen to get placed in a middle seat like me, be prepared because there is not much space to your left and right. You can stretch forward, and that is as far as you will go.
You call button is located on your IFE system, I used it once, after the dinner service to call for a glass of water, the crew came after about a minute and were just rushing to get me off their hand, which I understood because it was a full cabin and they needed their time in the galley. Overall they responded quickly and efficiently and that’s all I wanted at that point.
When you arrive at your seat, you will find a small pillow and thin blanket. The pillow was more on the firm side, I think it was just perfect though, the pillow combined with that foldable headrest made that seat comfortable for sleep. The blanket is a little too thin and too small for my liking. It did the job though and thankfully the cabin temperature was not too cold at any point.
There was some form of wifi connectivity on board, however all of my devices were not connecting and it seemed to not be working properly on this flight as my seatmates were also unsuccessful in connecting.
The cabin has the standard A350 mood lighting which always creates such a wonderful aesthetic in the cabin. I’m glad Delta did not cheap out on that option.
Dinner Service
Let’s move on to the service. The dinner service began about 1 hour into the flight. I must make mention, this crew was fast and efficient. They wanted to get some rest as much as we did and they spared no effort in securing that. They served everyone with a smile and very efficiently.
For Dinner we had fish with spicy rice, tomatoes, Old Croc Sharp Cheddar Cheese, 2 Cream Crackers, Truffle Brownie and a quinoa salad. I also had a glass of coke with my meal. I am not sure if it can be seen in the pictures, but the entire tray, packaging and quality of the catering just looks poor. The standards really seem to be falling with Delta in this area.
After the meal service, they collected the trays. At this time, a tea and coffee service was offered, of course it was the standard Starbuck offering, and that concluded the dinner service.
After many hours of sleep over the Atlantic ocean, I woke up to take a short break to the bathroom, start a movie and before we knew it, some breakfast was being rolled out. It is rather strange though to serve breakfast before arriving at 7pm local time in Johannesburg, but everyone did just sleep so I guess it works.
Breakfast
Breakfast was an egg and cheese calzone with a Chobani yoghurt, fruit bowl and of course, Starbuck tea and coffee. The Calzone was a little chewy, I wished it was a little bigger because honestly I was still hungry. The fruit bowl was tiny, but overall it was enough to get by.
Shortly after the meal service, the crew prepped the cabin for landing and we were down into a rainy Johannesburg in almost no time. Disembarking took a while as the jet bridge was slow and the front of the cabin had to go first. The Crew stood with a smile to greet everyone and were pleasant.
Immigration & Baggage Claim
South Africa’s immigration was quite slow with only 3 agents working. Once I got through we headed to baggage claim. Unfortunately this was a real let down from Johannesburg airport. In total we waited 40 minutes for all of our bags to come out (a total of 6). The weather was unfortunately bad, it was raining. However the delay of the bags was not the worst issue, the worst was the fact that the rain had been coming into the baggage claim area. The entire ceiling over the conveyor belt was leaking and falling onto passengers bags. Thankfully all of our bags made it to us with none getting wet or left behind in Atlanta.
Another interesting thing to see was airport staff members pulling off Medallion members’ bags and placing them on a red carpet with stanchions around for passengers to come and collect.
Overall Thoughts
Overall this entire Delta experience was a disaster. Horrible service, coordination and appalling customer service. It still baffles me how this all happens at their Hub airport where the best of the best is supposed to be offered.
Is this the “Hospitality and Service from the Heart.” they offer? Do all customers experience this? Is this their version of “Connecting the world”?
Are all crews as misinformed, mismanaged and careless as the ones I met?
Do all airport airline staff roll their eyes?
With products and services like this, why should I ever book with you again?
The other thing that baffles me is their lack of maintenance crews, how was it that night it took so long for them to arrive?
Another big question, how is it they could not find a second aircraft or crew to make the flight depart that night? Does Delta not plan for situations like these? Are there just no backup crews of aircraft? It really baffles me.
Do they really think service like this is going to bring them closer to competing with the leading giants like Emirates, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines and so many others?
How is it that in their Hub airports city, the hotels they provide are barely suitable? Flooded rooms, scamming and uninformed staff, it all is just one big mess of an operation.
Final Verdict
The Economy experience in the end was not bad or good. It was average, for the price of that seat, you’re getting what you paid for, it’s a seat……on a flight……with a basic meal, there is nothing special about it, in fact it sucks when compared to competitors like Emirates, Qatar or Lufthansa.
That concludes this week’s post, next week we look into the return flight back to Atlanta. Will we make it on to Premium Plus? Keep your eyes peeled to find out.