Originally posted by: Oscar1613
i apologize in advance... this one's gonna be a long one...
<rant>
my family and i (6 total) were flying to Paris in early June. We bought our tickets through Delta, but since Delta has no flights to Paris, we had to take a Delta flight to Atlanta and then switch to an Air France flight from Atlanta to Paris. Due to weather delays early in the day, the ATL airport was horribly backed up and therefore delayed our connection into ATL. this caused our Delta connection flight into ATL to be late, arriving 30 mins after our Air France flight to Paris was supposed to leave.
when we got off the plane in ATL, we crossed our fingers hoping that the Air France flight was delayed from taking off and ran to the flight monitors. "Air France 10:00PM flight to Paris, CDG.... Now Boarding"!!! so we ran to the tram to the international terminal, then ran to the gate. when we got there, it was pitch black, not a single person in sight. it was obvious the plane had left on time and the gate agents closed for the night without updating the flight status :|
so we went down to the main terminal, and rebooked for the same flight the following night. the only seats left on the plane were business class, so Delta upgraded us for free 😀 but the price was being stuck in Atlanta for a day, when we should've been sightseeing in Paris🙁 at the hotel, we logged on to the Delta website to confirm our seats and everything was ok. so the next morning we sightsee in Atlanta instead, then go back to ATL airport and sit in the Business lounge with free food and drinks.
we went to the Delta lady at the desk in the Lounge with our tickets and asked if we had to check in at the gate, to which she replied "No, you have boarding passes and confirmed seats, you should be ok." so a little while before the flight, we leave and go to the Air France gate. the time comes and they start boarding business class. we get in line and hand our boarding tickets to the agent at the gate who sticks it in the scanner, which promptly rejects it. she tells us, "sorry, you have to go to the counter and get new boarding tickets.":roll:
while we're waiting in line, one of the agents is on the PA system continually announcing that the flight is overbooked and offers a measly $100 voucher for anyone who wants to give up their seats:roll: after waiting at the back of the line for 20 mins, we watch countless people in front of us get to the desk, only to get very angry for some reason and storm off. by the time we get to the desk, nearly the entire plane has boarded. the Air France lady punches our ticket numbers into the computer, and immediately hands the tickets back to us and says, "sorry you're on standby... please wait over there."
my dad was outraged at this and tried to tell her that these were boarding tickets with assigned seats and not general standby passes; however, the lady would not hear any of it and simply said, "sir, we have a full plane i'm trying to get out... go away!":|
there was no point in hanging around since the plane was full, so we went to the Delta counter and explained our situation to them, at which point the Delta agent explains that Air France has an agreement with Delta that allows them to cancel without notice any reservations made by Delta in the past 24 hours but the only place they do that is in the US:| so we had to rebook on a Delta flight to Frankfurt, Germany, then take a Air France flight from Frankfurt(and surprise surprise, they didnt cancel us there) to Paris, and waste another day in Atlanta. thankfully Delta was kind enough to upgrade us to business class again, paid for our hotel in Atlanta that night, gave us meal vouchers, and $200 checks per ticket, even though it wasn't their fault.
after all that, when we finally got home from our 2 week vacation, my dad wrote a letter to both the Air France and Delta representatives listed on the FAA website. Delta wrote a nice apology back to us along with a $200 travel voucher for each person for our troubles, even though it was 100% Air France's fault. The letter to Air France bounced, saying the address (the one from the FAA website) no longer existed. he hunted down the correct address and sent it back. we received their letter back mid-August, which denied any responsibility but apologized that we experienced "inconveniences".:|
cliff notes:
1) Air France:thumbsdown:
2) Delta:thumbsup:
3) Air France:thumbsdown::thumbsdown:
</rant>
