Last night I boarded Delta 201 for ATL. We loaded up and taxied out for take off. The pilot then announced that the plane was "over loaded" (his expression, not mine) and we would have to burn fuel before leaving.

The weather was fine, a little headwind enroute, bout no big deal.... about 20 minutes extra. All explained by the pilot. He again related that we were too heavy because they "over loaded" us.

After two hours on the taxiway, the pilot explained that due to flight crew rest requirements, the flight had to be cancelled. He, for the third time apologized for Delta's mistake in overloading us.

The return to the terminal was absolutely fubar. No one was there to meet us to direct us to either international or customs. Do one told us whether to get our bags, etc. Remember, they had two hours to prepare for the inevitable mess when the plane was sitting on the taxiway "grossly overloaded".

Finally, on my own, I went through customs, got a visa, went to get my bags (of course no SAPS forms for my firearms as I was flying from Zimbabwe to the U.S. and now was stuck in RSA)...

I was told that SAPS would hold my gun case and put it on a flight the next day, but to take my other luggage with me (which, of course, contained ammo). Boy, were the agents idiots. The said not to worry about the ammo. I'm glad I knew better and got SAPS to hold it for me too (I hope???). I wonder is some unexperienced hunter will show up today and get some good RSA jail time?

Here's the real bitch. I called the U.S. number for Delta and was told that I would get no consideration because the flight was "weather" caused cancellation. I know that's a damned lie because:

1. I'm a licensed commercial pilot with insturment ratings, etc. and
2. because the pilot told me that it was because of Delta's fault in trying to "over load" the plane hoping that the wind would increase 7 more knots more than it was at original departure from the gate. 7 more knots... wow!

I wish to heck that you folks would call Delta and tell them that they picked on the wrong guy.

Use my name if you wish:
Ernest Gilbert
Flight DL201
March 15, 2010
JNB to ATL

I can assure you that the lying s.o.b. ops puke that is covering his butt and screwing almost 300 folks by claiming "weather" is going to write me a personal appology and I hope he loses his job. He's probably asleep in Hapeville thing that he's got his ass covered, when it's going to be in a sling and he's going to have two places to crap from because I'm going to cut another.

I do feel sorry for the pilot, he, getting told by Ops to lie, but being honest instead, will probably get a load of crap for his telling the truth.

Someone, please forward this to Delta, perhaps by fax with an explanation that thousands of folks read here and we almost all go to Africa.

Sorry about typos, but I'm paying up the kazoo for internet time in the hotel.

BTY, I got an elephant with Lou Hallamore and will post about that later.

I'm sorry to hear about that Judge.

I thought SAA was supposed to be the worst airline in the world. I guess Delta is trying to take over last place.

After hearing about all you have been put through I feel bad about holding a grudge against Delta for charging me for the in-flight meal after selling me a ticket that was supposed to include the meal(back in 05).


On a more serous note, how much money do these guys loose when they dump a full load of passengers? They will have to reload everyone the next day. No wonder the airlines lose money.

Go get'em JudgeG!

I haven't flown to Africa in five years, after going yearly the previous 12. I cannot believe the problems I am hearing and the difficulty finding reasonable connecting flights via countries that don't screw with firearms in transit. It is almost like the airlines don't want us to fly with them.

Semper Fi

I finally got in touch with a reservations person. My information previously given me was that I was scheduled to leave at 21:05 tonight. Problem is that they changed the time for departure to 7:00 p.m. No one even has attempted to tell me of the change and I learned of it only after 3 hours of holding, getting cut off, etc. Some folks are going to get screwed.

BTW, the hotel told everyone that they had to check out at 11:00 a.m. and fend for themselves until departure. Some folks surely have no access to check with Delta and they will miss the flight.

Incompetent boobs!

Delta sucks.

Here's hoping that I actually get to ATL and then home tonight/tomorrow.

BTW, guess who was gracious to me to put me up this afternoon and give me internet access and a phone to call the miserable bastards at Delta... Afton Guest House! I'm ordering a pizza, taking a snooze and off to the airport.

Afton House to the rescue!

At least they chose to screw the pooch on the way home after a good hunt!

Rich

First, Judge sorry this has all happened to you. BUT on the other hand we are going to have some fun now! Me thinks Delta done screwed the wrong pooch. I am getting my popcorn and peanuts and a Delta fold down seat to watch this action!

Glad you had a great hunt and look forward to the hunt report and pics!

Sorry this happened to you. I know how frustrating this can be.

I have flown about 3,000,000 miles on Delta and I am at the highest level of the frequent flyer program. Generally, I am very happy with them. However, occasionally I have an incident with them that infuriates me.

I was in Spain in December ibex hunting. We flew Delta. When the time to board came, the Delta personnel did not follow their own procedures. It was a mad house. It took at least twice as long to board everyone as it normally would have. We left about 45 minutes late. Then we had a bad headwind. We landed in Atlanta a little over an hour late.

I should add here that the flight from Madrid to Atlanta continued on to Orlando with the same exact flight number.

We clear customs, recheck our bags an literally run to the gate. We can see the plane with the jet way still attached. The door was closed. I am standing there sweating like crazy trying to give the Delta woman our tickets. She won't even listen. We stand there for 10 minutes watching the plane before they move the jet way. I was furious. The f'ing jackass woman that worked for Delta could have cared less.

We move on to the Crown Room or whatever they call it now. A very nice woman helped us. She got us rebooked. She was most pleasant and helpful. For some reason I can't remember, we had to check Tiffany (my girlfriend) at the departure gate. Off we go to the gate. The woman gave Tiffany her boarding pass. I asked is she could confirm mine again. She did and was most helpful. Off we go to kill 6 hours while we wait.

It comes time to board the flight to Orlando. We go to the gate. They stopped us from boarding telling us that our boarding passes were invalid and we had no valid tickets. This sent me into orbit as I had paid about $10,000 for our tickets. I got out the documents to show her.

Finally, they give us boarding passes. They have Tiffany in first class and me in coach. First, let me say that I would die before I sat in first class and Tiffany sat in coach. Regardless, under Delta's rules, I should have been the one to receive the first class ticket as Tiffany has no frequent flyer status. I am wondering just how this occurred. I am madder than a pit bull with pms. It only got worse.

Now here I am, a diamond level frequent flyer that had just paid for 2 international business class seats sitting in coach. You won't believe what happened next. They pulled 4 people out of coach to move them to first class. It ends up that these 4 were all Delta employees or family members of employees.

I was madder than hell. I filed a complaint the next day. After hearing the entire story, they fell all over themselves to help me and apologize.

Is it coming the day to found a airline company dedicated to the hunters travels? Could it have success?

JudgeG

Congratulations on the elephant.


Question: How does the pilot know that his Delta 201 jet is over-loaded? Does the cockpit have a instruments able to determine the plane and cargo weight?

If so, why was this not determined at the gate?


dale

Judge; I think you need to make a Video like the guy did about United when they broke his guitar and he put it on U-Tube. Around 150,000 hits United knew they done wrong. They are still trying to get him to pull it off U-Tube.

Wow, that sucks. This is neither the first nor the last time this will happen and still they don't have an effective plan to keep the passengers updated on flight changes. It sounds like the pilot was more safety conscious than the gate crew. He gets the manifest of what is on the plane just like the gate crew. The big difference is that his butt is on the overloaded plane so he cares if it is safe.

I'm glad to hear that Afton House came through for you. We enjoyed our layover there.

With fuel prices what they are, do airlines really sit and burn fuel for two hours vs offloading it?

Messed up story for sure.

Good luck getting your pound of flesh, but I don't think JudgeG of internet legend is causing Delta and its employees any sleepless nights now or in the future.

Asking for weather reports to substantiate their claims of weather delay might be a start.

quote:

With fuel prices what they are, do airlines really sit and burn fuel for two hours vs offloading it?

Of course not. Nothing in Delta's varioius sets of stories adds up. I hope that Judge G takes them to the cleaners.

Sorry to hear of the trouble Ernest. The only upside is that they screwed the pooch on your way back. Would have been a real pisser if it cut into your hunt. Congrats on the Ele and hope you get your pound of flesh out of the bastards.

I emailed this thread to Delta's customer (no)service email address--doubt it will do any good but until JudgeG gets back and can rip Delta a new one, at least it's a start.

That blows Judge. Glad to hear Annelise/Afton was there for you. They've always been great to me. Airlines deal with so many screw ups on a daily basis you'll have to pester the hell outta them to get anything, but keep at it. The squeaky wheel gets the grease! Glad you got an Ele, can't wait to hear about it.
Cheers,
David

You've SAA whom I swore I'd never fly with again and Delta who jerks their customers over....if I leave by boat now, can I get to Zim by the end of July????

You know it is sometime just plain bad luck. When one of these flights goes bad, it seems to go really bad.

I did the same exact flights last October. It was perfect.

I will still take Delta over SAA or flying to Europe.

Not trying to defend my archrival, but there are a couple of items that would cause a flight being overweight after it pushed back from the gate. Ultra long haul flight basically requires that everything works. Any malfunction will effect takeoff, cruise and landing performance. Any system degradation will cause a performance penalty, in Judge G's circumstance that was takeoff weight.
Modern aircraft computers are looped to test performance, i.e.- the test modes run on % on & on.
Sounds to me like Delta operations folks were trying to find a work around and hit the wall. All that test data is stored on drives and there is no getting out of a jam once the computers say were not going.
Antiskid brake failure is a HUGE hit.
Thrust reverser inop same.
Speed brakes/flight spoiler inop, yep, same.
Electronic engine controls, nogo.
Mach trim (prevents mach tuck cruise speed), it's another nogo.
in the good old days the first sign of trouble we would have had a spare aircraft ready to go, but don't get me started.
I hate to hear about hunting trips starting with a bad flight experience, but I guess it's how it turns out in the end that counts.

is fucked up customer service a no-go? plane sits on the taxiway for 2 hours and terminal personnel still don't know what do do with passengers when they return to the gate?

Judge,

If you still running around Jhb give me a call + 27 82 695 5327

Delta customer service is abysmal. At least every other flight I'm on the phone "giving them the opportunity" to make their customer service mean something.

I actually spoke with one of their CSAs a few weeks ago and he was very helpful - and sounded like he was from South Africa! Then he transferred me to a manager in the US and she hung up on me when I insisted that they needed to make it right....

Not as bad as what you went through, Judge, but my wife is a Diamond level and considering what I pay for her tickets, she gets no extra good deal treatment.

This just reminds me about last month when I had to fly to the west coast for business out of Atlanta. Delta cancelled most of their flights the morning I was suppose to fly out because of some expected snow in Atlanta. The snow never came and the flight they moved me to had me changing planes twice along the way. The only person with Delta honest enough to tell the truth would only whisper to me what was going on, she also helped me get on a direct flight.

When I was transferred to Atlanta almost 26 years ago, I moved to an area heavily populated with Delta folks--pilots, managers, mechanics, flight attendants--a real cross-section.

Back then, it was truly a family organization. I met mechanics who had been there 25 years and still didn't have enough seniority to get off the night shift. People loved Delta and you had better not say anything negative about THEIR company--it was like insulting someone's mother.

But a few years ago, that all changed, and Delta became just another company--and not a very good one--to work for. Instead of angrily defending Delta against critics, employees became increasingly dissatisfied and bitter. Delta laid off personnel, cut retirement benefits, and lost all its reputation as a great place to work. The Delta family went through a traumatic divorce.

Now, when I run into Delta employees--especially ex-employees--I hear nothing but complaints and criticism--a very sad commentary on a once-great company.

The unfortunate reality is that the airlines have and continue to lose their ass. They all had to take drastic measures to survive. These measures were no doubt very unpopular with the employees and customers. It was a matter of survival. Remember Delta did file a bankruptcy petition not that long ago. Business as usual did not work. They had to do something.

Yes, they had to do something. Something different. But employees get a bad attitude when they take a 40% pay cut and the senior managers take 40 million in bonuses.

BTW...this is a true senario.

Armbar.

I just got home a minute ago.

Believe it or not, when the plane was loaded again and the doors shut, the pilot announced that Delta had done it again. He told us that the plane had been over fueled by 3000 lbs and that he wasn't about to taxi us around again, but was having cargo removed to lessen weight. (Same pilot, btw).

When we finally arrived in ATL this morning, we discovered that the removed weight was passenger baggage (just about everyone was missing a bag or two.... my gun case arrived but my suitcase didn't). Of course, being late make most folks miss connection. What a FUBAR!

I've included the response I got from customer relations from my first message to them. The idiot thinks that we passengers are going to believe crap about flight clearances (ATC), etc., after the pilot told us the truth. I wonder how the stupid turd is going to explain the same thing happening twice.

Crap!

quote:

Dear Mr. Gilbert, Thank you for your correspondence regarding your recent trip on March 15from Johannesburg to Brunswick. On behalf of everyone at Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, I am truly sorry for the inconvenience youexperienced due to our flight cancellation and unsatisfactory customer service. It is abundantly clear that your experience was far from a shining moment in airline travel and far from the level of service you had everyright to expect. We want to respond to any service problems with improvements - not excuses. Therefore, I was disheartened to read of the further frustration your plans were disrupted due to an Air Traffic Control (ATC) situation. Since these disruptions are beyond our control, we do not provide compensation or amenities, such as meals or lodging. Moreover, I cannot express how sorry I am that throughout such strenuouscircumstances, our personnel did not help in your difficult situation. I certainly understand why you wanted to bring this matter to our attention. We expect our employees to be helpful and professional at all times. Please know I will be sharing all your comments with our Airport Customer Service leadership team for internal follow up. When our service does not meet our customers' expectations, we feel it is important to acknowledge this and appeal for a degree of understanding. To demonstrate our commitment to customer service, I have added 3,700 bonus miles to your SkyMiles account. Please allow 3 business days for the miles to be added. Mr. Gilbert, I hope I have been able to resolve any concerns you have about our service. We appreciate your Silver Medallion loyalty and hopeto welcome you onboard a future flight. Given this privilege, I am confident we will provide the excellent service you deserve and have every right to expect Sincerely, Jerry P. BrownCoordinatorCustomer Care

Mr. Brown is going to get a chance to check his facts, btw.

What the F*ck is 3,700 miles! A fifth of good booze would be worth more.

Hi Ernest. Congratulations on the Ele. I am anxious to see the hunt report. It has to be an incredible feeling knowing you are still able to "go get 'em" when you wish.
Sorry for the troubles but in a few days those memories will disaapear and you will only remember the sights and sounds of the wild.
Frank

well that note was a fabulous bunch of i read it twice and i'm still not sure they said anything except for the word whitwash

Just so you know, they sent you a 'form letter' and just inserted your name.

I don't know. When I bitched and complained about my Spain fiasco, they didn't send the same letter. They also did a lot more for me.

A flight from JNB has arrived in the states with sufficient time to make a transfer to my home airport.... and still no luggage.

I called the "lost luggage" number. After a fifteen minute wait on bumper music and ads for credit cards, I gave up for today.

Delta sucks.

Tomorrow I'll send a letter, certified-signature required with the details to senior management.

Wonder what the response will be?

Don't be surprised if they make you go pick it up.....they did that with one ARer lost guns. I thought that was unbelievable, but just goes to show what I know.....glad you're home from a good hunt. Congrats.

When the airlines leave a bag behind like this case, or send it somewhere else - does it need to clear customs when it does come in? How does that take place?

Les

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
is fucked up customer service a no-go? plane sits on the taxiway for 2 hours and terminal personnel still don't know what do do with passengers when they return to the gate?

Don't get fuckin snippy, just trying to explain something. And, quit saying fuck, it's fucking rude.

quote:

Originally posted by Vemo:
Not trying to defend my archrival, but there are a couple of items that would cause a flight being overweight after it pushed back from the gate. Ultra long haul flight basically requires that everything works. Any malfunction will effect takeoff, cruise and landing performance. Any system degradation will cause a performance penalty, in Judge G's circumstance that was takeoff weight.
Modern aircraft computers are looped to test performance, i.e.- the test modes run on % on & on.
Sounds to me like Delta operations folks were trying to find a work around and hit the wall. All that test data is stored on drives and there is no getting out of a jam once the computers say were not going.
Antiskid brake failure is a HUGE hit.
Thrust reverser inop same.
Speed brakes/flight spoiler inop, yep, same.
Electronic engine controls, nogo.
Mach trim (prevents mach tuck cruise speed), it's another nogo.
in the good old days the first sign of trouble we would have had a spare aircraft ready to go, but don't get me started.
I hate to hear about hunting trips starting with a bad flight experience, but I guess it's how it turns out in the end that counts.

I appreciate your response, but before leaving the gate, the pilot knew it wasn't going to happen and had argued with ops about taking off freight... Remember, it happened two nights in a row and only on the second, did they remove my bag (and lots of others), mine, not so incidently, still lost somewhere.

There is no excuse for such behavior by the airlines. Then to purposefully lie about who caused the problems and deny any responsibility is just inexcusable. Somewhere, sometime, I will get to ask the idiot who made the "overloading" decision, exactly what eventual consequences to the passengers did he consider with his bone-headed insistance that we taxi out on an overloaded plane with pilots running out of crew rest requirments?

What is also disgusting, is that Delta knew that the parameters were not good the entire two hours we taxied around buring fuel. There was no preparation at the airport for our predictable return.

Delta sucks. I just got another e-mail that trys to avoid responsibility for my lost bags and delays.

They have not once responded to the overload situation, the burning of excess fuel, the poor/no response at JNB when we returned to the gate by bus and the unbelivable two nights in a row of overloading the plane... just boilerplate b.s.

We'll see what today brings.

I finally got someone in lost baggage to talk to me about that portion of the problem. She told me that since they've opened this morning that several of the passengers of Flight 201 had called, they too, not having received their baggage and now several flights have come to the U.S. from JNB.

The lady admitted that she had no clue as to where the luggage removed from the a/c went.

Amazingly, she told me that as soon as I hung up, she would have to take another call and she would have no facility to make an inquiry for me unless she had me hold (in other words, her only purpose was not to handle complaints, but to smooze with the lie that something was happening).

She had no idea of what SAPS was, their policy of intercepting firearms and ammo, etc. She was very polite, took notes, read them back to me and sent several inquiries while I held.

Bet it doesn't make a bit of difference, though!

Hello Judge,

I am guessing you are the person we met at Bulawayo club on the 5th?

We also got screwed by Delta on the return leg. It was supposed to be non stop to Atlanta but they overpacked cargo and underpacked the fuel. We landed unscheduled in Puerto Rico 4 AM to no crew,no gas and no clearance from customs. Hours of delay and missed connections. Additionally, our guns are impounded by customs because they were not on our flight. I expect it will all work out, but Delta's stock is pretty low with me.

Glad to hear you got your elephant. Please keep in touch.

Will

Will:

Tell us more... did you just get fuel and continue to Atlanta..eventually?