javabytes

And reimbursement for expenses

remyontheroad

I wonder what kind of losses they took on freight too...

brkandjfk

Gosh, not in my opinion. Not flying me lost them $750 in revenue that is being refunded. Hotel room was $220, food at $36*2 days, and we're at $1k without even covering the customer service gesture (currently at 12,500 miles times two flights).

DrMilano

I’m well over $1,000 including EU261 compensation.* Cancelled 1 upcoming trip and didn’t book the 2nd trip for next week—I’m close to $3,000 combined expenses and lost revenue for Delta.

Nor does this include the future DOT fine, as mayor Pete has cited the former Southwest fine as a wake up call, but unfortunately that had zero affect changing airline management behavior. Maybe a $250 million fine?

* Not giving an exact number to stay anonymous regarding Delta lurking around here, nor have I had the time to submit my claims.

sc001

I'm curious if this was only because of a cancellation? still haven't gotten anything from Delta after a 6 hour delay.

PTahCha

What's the basis to assume that DL is not fulfilling a compliance requirement?

MahiMahi524

Has the standard compensation via apology email been 10K SkyPesos for non-elites and 12.5K for elites?

sc001

I'm honestly not sure they have standardized when they are sending emails and to whom. I've received nothing as a 360/Two Million Miler for a 6 hour delay. I am not looking for the miles, but would love to hear from Delta regardless.

mathlete

I had a canceled flight, but I was able to put myself on another DL one ~8 hours later (note that it isn't the one they rescheduled me for, which was two *days* later). I got an unsolicited 10k miles by email yesterday.

chococat

I (plat) just got my email after a (Saturday) 9 hour rolling delay, cancellation, and red-eye standby flight that was also cancelled. Spent 12+ hours at the airport. Rebooked 2 days later (Monday) on a flight that was 2 hours delayed and arrived after 1am. Thanks for the insulting 10,000 miles, Delta.

unitedbusiness

I got 12,500 a total of 3 times. Not a bad payoff. I’ll take it

DrMilano

Didn’t you get that nice 360 leather bag?
Ridiculous, maybe it was for people that spent over night?

DrMilano

Looks like DOT will require a time limit to reach a customer service agent in the future. How will Delta and the other airlines handle this? Might have to start paying customer service agents now be “on call”? Double or triple pay if requested? Might have to cross train additional employees in DLTerm when up staffing/surge assistance is needed?

Addendum:
WaPo reported today that DOT is also investigating Delta about misleading texts that were sent to customers that cancelled flights were entitled to a credit and “[Delta] did not spell out their [customers] rights to a refund.”

kangarooflyer88

Not really. For a flight disruption like this you could easily spend $1,000 USD. Don't believe me? Try finding an airport hotel at the last minute. Easily will cost you several hundred right there. And not to burst your bubble but meals aren't cheap either be it at airports or the airport hotels. I think $25 USD per meal is not unreasonable per meal. So if you are looking at a day delay that could be $75 in meals, maybe $400 in hotels plus ground transport to hotel, plus potentially having to buy a walk up fare with a competitor to get you home if things REALLY stretch on (and Delta is unable to help you with rebooking).

All of this doesn't even include compensation entitlements which would kick in if you are travelling to/from Canada or from Europe. In which case you are looking at 600 Euros (in the case of EU261) or $1000 CAD (in the case of Canada's APPR). Remember too that these compensation amounts accumulate. So if you had a Delta flight from Paris to Atlanta, and they cancel your flight and rebook you on a Delta flight the next day and that flight in turn gets cancelled and you are rebooked on a Delta flight departing 2 days later from when you were originally scheduled to depart, that's 1200 Euros there (600 Euros for disruption #1 and 600 Euros for disruption #2). And that doesn't even include the Montreal Convention (applicable for most international flights). Article 19 of the convention states that airlines are on the hook for $7200 USD in damages due to flight disruptions, and cannot cap their damages below that statutory amount (article 26). Damages could include new flights, hotels, meals and lost wages. So if you lost a day's worth of wage, Delta will have to cover your wages. You may think that's unfair but that is what the United States, Canada and over 100 countries believe is fair for international travel.

The thing most folks on the Delta forum don't realize is that EU261 is an entitlement. You are entitled to a whole host of benefits when you depart out of the EU in the case of a disruption. There is no arguing or pleading with the airline. The airline must provide you with hotels and meals, they must rebook you on the next available flight. And if they refuse to do so, you simply do it yourself and send Delta the bill. And they'll have to pay up, because unlike the regulators in the US, EU regulators have teeth and will punish airlines harshly for not following their obligations under this entitlement. Oh and compensation is owed. This IT failure was completely foreseeable by Delta (they've had multiple IT blowups over the years impacting operations) so compensation would be owed too. Remember, EU courts have ruled that a pilot dying just before boarding a flight is not considerable extraordinary under EU261 and thus eligible for compensation under the law. Combine that with the $7,000 in damages airlines are liable for under the Montreal Convention and yes this can be a real expensive stuff up for Delta.

One other thing that people should realize is that laws like the EU261 and Montreal Convention cover them for the entirety of their journey. So if you had no problems leaving Paris on your Air France flight but encountered delays in Atlanta, Delta must provide all the benefits of the Montreal Convention and EU261 for that trip, even if your next flight with them that was impacted is solely in the United States since the airline agreed to transport you from the EU to the US and so those domestic US segments are considered international EU segments even if they are operated within the US.

They will get a fine. They've handled it extremely poorly here fobbing it off as a vendor issue when it was a Delta Airlines issue from the beginning. The fact of the matter is you need to have contingencies in place for IT going down and blaming it on a vendor is the equivalent of saying the dog ate my homework. But worse still Delta was violating their tariffs and the law, misleading customers about what their rights are under the law (i.e. saying they can only receive a credit), not providing hotels and rebooking on competitors (even though their tariffs say they must) plus the long customer service queues. There is no excuse for someone to wait on hold for 3 hours to get customer service. This isn't to blame the customer service personnel, I'm sure they are doing a fantastic job given the circumstances. But Delta needed to have contingencies in place to ensure passengers don't have to wait. The fact of the matter is disruptions in the United States are very common, particularly weather related ones. Maybe that means Delta has to invest more on self-service tools to allow customers to solve the problems Delta creates without needing an agent. Maybe it means having customer service on reserve they can flick on when the going gets tough.

-RooFlyer88

javabytes

I got it 2x. My flight was cancelled on Sunday. I rebooked several times, snagging the last seat on different flights as inventory changed, and I guess one of those ended up cancelling too. In the end I was delayed about 10 minutes.

Though I suppose the beauty of miles is when you can print your own currency and you also run the only store where it can be spent, you can print by the millions and just jack redemption rates on the back end to reduce your cost.