I am a frequent flyer and have flown with Delta Air Lines on and off for 35+ years. In that time, I've certainly had my fair share of travel delays and cancellations. However, the service recovery I experienced last week with Delta in the face of irregular operations surprised me — and not in a good way.

The Cancelation (& Mouse)

I was in Boston on a business trip and had spent the day going from one meeting to the next. All I wanted was a smooth flight home, but I had a feeling that things were going to be bumpy after alerts kept coming in stating low cloud ceilings were disrupting flights at Boston Logan Airport. This particular Boston to Seattle flight, the last of the day on Delta, is notorious for delays. By the time I was headed to Logan, my flight had already been pushed out.

My flight, DL 324 had an original departure time of 7:25 pm with a scheduled arrival of 10:49 pm into Seattle. In the mid-afternoon, the flight was already delayed by nearly three hours to a 10:20 pm departure. Delays kept rolling in left and right, and before I knew it, what was once a nice evening flight had turned into a painful 1:40am departure.

In the midst of the delays, I arrived at the airport and went to the Delta Sky Club in Terminal E. Hot tip: the other lounges close at 8 & 9 pm while the new Sky Club is typically open until 11 pm. I took full advantage of the lounge, having dinner, getting work done, and even grabbing a quick shower.

I eventually went down to the gate around midnight where I met a little mouse eating the crumbs left by my fellow passengers, which was soon interrupted by a chorus of text message dings ringing through the air. Bedlam instantly broke out as everyone simultaneously realized that our flight was not happening.

Typically when Delta cancelations occur, the airline automatically rebooks you and shows the new itinerary in the app. However, I calmly called customer service because the auto-rebook didn't occur immediately. After a brief wait for a representative, I was eventually booked on a 5:55 am flight to SEA with a layover in MSP. I also received a recovery email with instructions for getting transportation, a hotel (which was easy to select), and a food voucher. Things were going really well with this disruption response...a little too well.

I walked out of the airport and opened up Uber, who Delta contacted to provide transportation to the hotel. This is where things started to unravel. I was assigned a "premium pickup" and followed the instructions provided by Delta to reach what can only be described as a dimly lit deserted pickup area. I soon got a message that the driver arrived, yet he was nowhere in sight. We quickly started a phone call in which he proceeded to yell at me, repeatedly telling me that I was in the wrong place (he was at the old ride-app pickup area). I ended up having to book my own Lyft, whose driver took three wrong turns adding 30 minutes to our ride.

When I finally walked into the hotel, the first words out of the clerk's mouth were "oh no." I asked what was wrong and she informed me that Delta had just rolled out a new system that will "take them a bit" to figure out. The check-in process required the help of a manager and took over 30 minutes, which felt like an eternity in the middle of the night, especially when I was due to be back at the airport around 4:00am. This night truly was a gift that kept on giving.

While most of the calamities I faced were simply annoyances, I called Delta to report what I believed were two immediate safety issues: sending customers to an abandoned dimly lit pickup area and the negative experience with the original Uber driver. Delta was barely willing to acknowledge these issues, so I requested a callback from a manager. I was promptly told that they could not call back to which I ended the call as the clock struck 2:30am since I needed to get some rest.

The Aftermath

I eventually made it home to Seattle without any further drama before I called back on Monday asking to speak to a manager. After hearing that I was calling to report safety concerns, the manager on duty informed the representative I was speaking to that I would need to call the general customer service line (I was speaking to the premium service line since I'm a Diamond Medallion member). I was taken aback when I asked the representative why a manager would not want to hear about the safety issues and was met with an explanation to the tune of "the manager may not want to deal with this right now."

There is no denying that the entire service recovery was a high-friction process and left a bad taste in my mouth. Delta needs to spend more time with their partners identifying gaps that exist to improve the customer journey and experience. Here are a few concrete suggestions for Delta:

-Implement a follow-up process for passenger identified safety issues.
-Include more end to end process testing in the real world before rolling out changes in their canceled flight operations (or strengthen the current testing model).
-Tighten up communication between the airline and passengers about what to do and where to go after a cancellation (especially at BOS).

It's good to keep in perspective that at the end of the day, I did make it home. I got reimbursed for the Lyft costs, received an apology for the service interruptions, and was given eCredit. I also received an assurance that someone would look into the issue with ride pickup at Logan. Although I hope to avoid any future flight cancellations, I'm fascinated to see how Delta will continue to improve this process over time.