Orlando travel during Charley
Tina and I were attempting to get to Orlando yesterday for a conference
(before we knew that Charley was going to head directly TO Orlando).
We were booked on a 2:10p flight on Delta... and we kept VERY close watch on
the flight information throughout Thursday evening and into Friday morning.
And while the advice to watch the websites and check before you drive to the
airport is generally a good idea, the airlines have to keep up the data on
those sites for the information to be valid.
What I mean by this is that during yesterday (Friday) morning, Delta decided
to cancel and then reinstate flight 6402 at least 3 times of which we're
aware (signing up for e-mail notifications was a great idea).
At 8:15a, flight was on.
At 9:50a, flight was on.
At 10:40a, flight was cancelled.
At 11:00a, flight was on.
At 11:05a, flight was cancelled.
At 11:10a, flight was on.
At 11:50a, flight was cancelled.
During all of this, Jeff called Delta at approximately 10:40a (when he first
received notice of cancellation to see if we could get another flight) and
was either talking with someone or on hold through 11:35a. By that time,
the flight was reinstated (twice) and so the rebooking agent told him that
it was no longer necessary to rebook at all.
In the middle of that one conversation, Jeff's callwaiting rang through. It
was a Delta agent. While he had been on hold at 11:10a and the flight was
on, we had both printed out our Boarding Passes online. This second agent
was calling to tell Jeff that he was on a list of folks to be rebooked
(because of the 10:40a or 11:05a cancellation). Jeff asked her "are you
sure" and "can you please check the flight status right now." She did,
realized that Jeff was correct and that the flight was now going. She hung
up.
Jeff went back to his call and spent a few more minutes relaying the
conversation to the rebooking agent. She told him that it appeared that the
FAA had approved all flights to and from Orlando until 3pm. Since ours was
a 2:10p flight, we were fine and that the flight was going to be the last
one out of the day. We got a momentary chuckle out of the interruption
again and then hung up.
[Note to reader: Are you confused yet? Try living this adventure!]
By 11:30a, Jeff was in his car, headed home from work to grab our bags and
get to the airport.
At 11:45a, Jeff received a call on his cellphone from a male Delta agent
telling him that flight 6402 was cancelled (again) and that he had been
rebooked for Saturday's 3pm flight. While he was debating this with the
Delta agent, our home phone rang... it was a female Delta agent calling for
Tina's reservation to tell her that she had been rebooked for Saturday's 2pm
flight.
OK. So Jeff now has a cellphone pressed to his right ear, a cordless home
phone pressed to his left ear and he addressed both agents at the same time.
He told them that he wanted to first confirm that the flight was actually
cancelled.
Both typed and confirmed that the flight was cancelled. Jeff then asked to
make sure that both he and Tina would be on the same flight. The female
agent got testy and said that it was "ridiculous" that Jeff was taking up
two agents' time with this. He agreed that it was ridiculous, but that he
needed to make sure that both of us flew together and that this wasn't going
to be worse than it already was.
So Jeff got the male Delta agent to continue with me, thanked the other for
calling and went down to only one cancer-inducing product on the side of his
head. Jeff didn't want him to cancel the 2:10p flight on Friday because by
now, we had lost all faith in Delta's ability to cancel a flight and keep it
cancelled (we've had prior problems with Delta and bad weather). So we had
him hold a reservation for the two of us on the 3pm Saturday flight (just in
case... and note that it wasn't the 2:10pm flight).
We hung up and by that time, Tina arrived home to meet Jeff to go to the
airport. She saw that the message light on the phone was blinking... and
hit play. It was two messages from Delta. Calling her to say that the 6402
flight was cancelled and that she'd been rebooked. Each time the agents
called, however, they had rebooked her on a different flight.
After a few moments' discussion, we decided to just go to the airport. It's
only a few minutes away and it wouldn't hurt, especially if Delta had
another change of heart.
By the time we reached the airport, parked the car, went through security,
got to the gate... and were reminded that the flight was cancelled.
The gate agent had an interesting bit of information, however. We could
cancel our tickets and get a FULL refund because the flight was cancelled by
Delta. So we did (and with luck, we made the right decision given the path
of Charley).
[Side note again... this trip was for a HOBY conference... something we're
both pretty involved in... and HOBY was telling us that we shouldn't bother
to come down on Saturday, but that we could "buy the flight out from them"
(which we didn't want to do for $500 since flights to Orlando are currently
at $120 or so) or that it would be "credited" for 2005. Neither option was
good... so finding out that we could cancel and get HOBY a full refund was
awesome for us.]
Then we went looking for another flight somewhere else because we figured
we'd already boarded the dog for the weekend and had packed our bags to go
somewhere. But that's another story. :)
Anyways, the moral of this tale: Delta doesn't know how to do flight
information. Delta also doesn't know how to cancel their flights and handle
severe weather. BUT, folks SHOULD ask for and get a full refund if their
flight was cancelled and the trip is not worth going later (don't know if
you have to be at the airport to do it, but we enjoyed getting a receipt of
the refund as "evidence" from the gate agent).
OK... time to go watch a movie and stay dry on the couch!
~Jeff & Tina
