delta + northwest = disaster

i purchased a ticket to florida many months ago. i made sure i had seat assignments, too. aisle seats at the front of the planes. i don't like flying and having a bad seat makes it that much worse. the trip there was pretty uneventful. that's a good thing. i guess delta + northwest was just saving up their graces for the disaster that was the trip home.

a few days before i was to fly home i got an email with a change in schedule. this happens often and is usually just a change of a few minutes or a change in aircraft. so i didn't think much of it.

until i looked at it. instead of flying through atlanta as planned, i had been rerouted through minneapolis adding several hours to the trip. i was really disappointed, but i understand operational changes need to happen sometimes. this one seemed a bit extreme but i was going to roll with it (as i didn't really have a choice).

until i realized they has also assigned me a middle seat at the back of the plane for both flights. umm...you're going to cancel my flight, send me on a completely different route, add hours to my travel time AND give me crappy seats? i'm SO not cool with that.

so i called. i got a woman who apparently hates her job. that's too bad for me as she was rude and had no interest in helping me at all. i hung up being even more annoyed than i had been fifteen minutes earlier when i had embarked on the mission to get a human on the phone.

but i wasn't giving up. so i called again. this time i got a man who actually did want to help me. but couldn't. apparently as delta and northwest merge their systems don't communicate with each other. i had called delta but i needed to speak with someone at northwest. he offered to transfer me. at this point i was invested and i figured i didn't have anything to loose (except more time and energy..).

the woman at northwest was actually pretty nice. she offered me a slightly better seat on the first flight and an aisle seat toward the front of the plane for the second flight. i thanked her and felt much better. that mission was a big hassle but it was worth it for a good seat if i'm going to be traveling for twelve hours.

too bad she didn't (or couldn't) keep her word.

this sad story is a long one and has been split in three. i'll be back tomorrow with delta + northwest = disaster (part two).