Worst Flight Ever!

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

I've had some bad plane flights in my life. Extreme turbulance on a small nothing of a plane once dumped a beer into my laptop bag. Another time, caught in a storm, I spent an hour and a half feeling so nauseous I just wanted to die. And after a long layover, and way too much to drink, I alternately passed out and threw up all the way from Frankfort to New York. I've missed planes, had my luggage lost, and been treated like shit by airlines employees. But on Sunday, I had the worst airline experience of my life. And let me just say this at the outset: we were flying Delta.

It began in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. My girlfriend Sarah and I flew down on Friday from DC for a long weekend. I played some golf, she shopped; we both had a great time. We got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight back, and had a super-easy checkin. Security was a breeze, and we had a couple of drinks at the bar while waiting for flight to start boarding. Once on board, though, things started to go wrong. Take off time comes and goes, and finally the pilot comes on and says that we are delayed because of weather. Looked like just rain to me, but I'm not going to second-guess the pilot on stuff like that. After 30 minutes on the tarmac, we finally take off, and by shaving 10 minutes off the flight time, we're actually only 20 minutes late into Atlanta.

That's the good news. The bad news is that leaves us only 20 minutes to travel from Terminal A to Terminal E to catch our connecting flight to Washington National. Sarah asked at least three Delata employees, "Can we make it in time?" They all said yes. Still, we didn't take any chances. As soon as we're at the gate, we're both sprinting to the intra-terminal train. Once at Terminal E, we both sprint again to the gate. I'm a little faster, so I quickly get ahead of her. A few feet from the gate, I hear the announcement over the sound system that the gate will be closing in one minute. I go a little faster.

Inside the gate, I go to the counter and tell the Delta staff there that my girlfriend is on her way, will be here any second. Even though the one minute hasn't passed yet, another Delta staffer is already hooking the vinyl rope line in place to close off the opening I just passed through. I'm pointing at Sarah right now as she runs toward the gate, but nobody seems to give a damn. When she gets to the closed gate, I wave her forward, thinking there won't be a problem. I've let the Delta folks know she was coming; I explained our connecting flight was delayed; she only arrived a few seconds later… what could go wrong?

As soon as Sarah crossed under the rope into the gate area, the security guard present, quiet until now, suddenly sprang into action, telling her to move back. At first Sarah thought he was telling her she couldn't get on the plane. The security guard replied that flights to Washington National have special security, and that the gate must close 10 minutes before flight time, and she needs to move out of the gate. She does; I plead our case to the counter staff. I might as well have been talking to a wall, for all the response I got. I tell them that their flight was late; I tell them that we both ran like hell to make the gate on time; I tell them I pointed her out as they were roping off the gate area… nothing. Sarah's not holding back either: she's trying to argue with them as well, not that you can really argue with people who won't even acknowledge you are talking to them. Well, not exactly true — one woman did say (in response to a question from one of the other folks at the gate) that if we didn't like it, we could call the government. Nice.

I should mention, then, that right as Sarah arrived at the gate, two other delayed travellers arrived as well. Both tried to tell anyone who would listen that they made it to the gate within the minute dealine announced over the intercom. Of course, nobody listened. They asked for the names of the counter staff; they didn't answer that question, either. They only question the counter people had was to ask me if I intended to board the plane or not. I told them, not without Sarah. They told me to leave the gate area, and then began to board some standby passengers.

Wait a second — they had been telling me that no one could board the plane 10 minutes before the flight, but here they are, boarding passengers. No special security involved — no searches, no questions, they just went right on board the plane. The difference, from a security perspective, between them and Sarah? A few minutes of time. Hell, if I had wanted, I could have boarded too, with nothing more than a request for ID and a boarding pass, both of which I had. At this point, Sarah begins to lose her temper, and the security guard tells her that she has a bad attitude. We took that as our exit cue — nothing was going to happen at the gate. We head to the Delta ticket counter to try to get on another flight, our two new travelling companions close behind. We stop and talk to another Delta employee in the terminal. While he was at least willing to talk to us, he still directed us to go to the ticket counter and see if we could rebook on another flight.

At the ticket counter, we find out that the flight that just refused our business was the last flight that day to Washington National. There was a flight in another hour and a half, we were told, but that was to Dulles, a good 45 minues away from National, where our car happened to be. OK, fine, let's just get home. But we can't actually get a reserved seat — we have to settle for standby. No problem, we're told, there are 29 seats available, you'll make it. The asked question: will our luggage follow us to Dulles? Oh, yes, of course, we are assured. The unasked question — if there are 29 seats available, then why can't you just give us a boarding pass?

Sarah and I grab a quick dinner a Chili's, and then we're off to the gate. We arrive, and we find out that despite the fact that we were told we were on "priority standby", we still haven't made the cleared list. For twenty minutes, we wait, still not sure if we're getting on the flight or not. Finally, our names appear, at what seems the last possible minute, and we board.

The flight to Dulles is uneventful, and after landing we head straight to baggage claim, along with our two new best friends, who also made the flight. We wait, and wait, and wait… nothing. Sarah goes to check out the Delta baggage claim counter, and a few minutes later is waving us all over. Seems our luggage is not at Dulles. One guess where our bags are: ready…. National! That's right, our bags got on the plane without us.

Now, this is where I start to lose it. I'm told Sarah and I can't both get on the flight to National because that airport has special security requirements. The gate must close 10 minutes before flight time. Not that any security checks seemed to take place. However, because Delta airlines staff unthinkingly enforced a minor policy, they let slip through a much more significant security risk — my bags got on that flight without me. Remember, this was the last flight to National that night. I remember that the woman behind the counter at the gate told me I could call the government if I had a problem. I'm now seriously thinking of calling the FAA and letting them know that Delta allowed a major security breach by allowing my bag on a plane that I wasn't on. If anyone who has any authority in this matter is reading this story, I'm willing to say all of this on the record. Delta made a major mistake — one that made by trip a horror, but one that also seems to have broken some much more important security guidelines.

So that's my story. This wasn't the worst flight ever because of the weather, beacuse of how I felt during the flight, because my luggage was misplaced, or because I was extraordinarily later. The weather made the first flight late, but not too late; I felt fine during the flights themselves; I've lost luggage before; and I was only 3 hours later getting home. No, what makes this the worst flight ever is the fact that it didn't have to be that way, that there were people who, if they had only exercised a modicum of rational discretion, who hadn't treated me and Sarah as if we didn't matter. This was totally preventable. But Delta didn't do a thing, gave us not a single break, treated us as if this was all our fault.

So, two conclusions: 1) I will never fly Delta again unless they give me a bunch of free tickets; and 2) I will probably make the effort to report Delta's security breach to the FAA or other relevant authorities.

In the meantime: if you can boycott Delta, do. If not, be prepared.