Delta, Get A Clue
Today's a travel day. We get to enjoy the Friendly Skies once again, plus we get to experience the 2002 edition of Homeland Insecurity at the airport. I've griped a lot about the airlines lately, and I'm sure today will provide more grist for the mill.
Latest gripe: nonsensical pricing policies. As we flew west to east last week, we had some weather problems. We decided we wanted to terminate our outbound itinerary in Cincinnati, rather than suffer the four hour layover to get the delayed shuttle flight on in to West Virginia. Bottom line, we told Delta we wanted to fly 3 flights instead of 4, no changes in seats or return flights, and we expected no money back. We would use 3 units of service instead of 4, and they'd be free to resell the unused seats. Delta's response: if you "break" the outbound itinerary, we'll cancel your return and you'll have to buy new tickets at $1000+ prices/ticket (4X the original).
Now I'm a veteran of business, and I understand that lots of variables go into a pricing decision. I even understand some of the math behind the airlines' load management algorithms. But somewhere in this process, logic and common sense should prevail. One of their best customers (approaching one million miles on Delta) wants to skip a connecting flight, Delta still gets paid for the seat (maybe twice), and their reaction is an algorithm-driven slap in the face. There's so much wrong with this, I don't know where to begin.
One observation: the same request on Southwest would have been met with "OK, see you on the return flights...", with no charges levied for not using the seat. And SW happens to be the only US airline that made money last year. So much for the correlation between profit and load management algorithms.
5:23:32 AM 
|
|
