Dear Delta,
We do understand the weather situation. However, our problems originated from technical faults of your airline. The cancellation of flight KL6104 due to technical faults was the catalyst for the myriad of problems that resulted, which included four preceding flights that were cancelled at the last minute with little or no explanation, leaving us stranded in three different cities without luggage. In the end, our 14 hour travel from Billund to JFK resulted in taking us 85 hours over four days, and seven different flights. This is not merely an inconvenience for us, but also a large financial burden due to loss of income, and we feel that we were nowhere close to being adequately compensated for the extent of disruption that we encountered.
Our original flight was scheduled from Billund to JFK on Saturday, with layovers in Amsterdam and London. This, however, was very far from our final route. Upon arriving in London, we were told that our flight to JFK was cancelled due to a technical fault. We were told upon our arrival to London, however, that Delta had been aware of this situation earlier and we were supposed to have been stopped from taking the flight from Amsterdam to London.
In Delta’s second attempt to get us to JFK, we were then rerouted to go from London back to Amsterdam to stay the night, before getting on our flight from Amsterdam to JFK, with layovers in Minneapolis and Chicago. We were told that no type of compensation would be provided, however, because our flight was cancelled in London and we were staying overnight in Amsterdam. Thus, we spent the night in the airport.
The next morning, on Sunday, we boarded our plane from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, with the plan that we would be leaving for Chicago and then home to JFK. When we got to Minneapolis, we were told that our flight to Chicago was cancelled, without an explanation, and that there were no other flights that day. We were forced to stay overnight in Minneapolis. To your credit, we were given a hotel room and $50 meal credit.
Delta’s third attempt to get us to JFK involved flying us from Minneapolis on Monday morning, with a layover in New Orleans, getting us into JFK at 5:30pm on Monday evening. After arriving in New Orleans and being told that our flight was two hours delayed, we were absolutely astonished to hear that once again our flight was cancelled. We were not provided an explanation, other than that the flight crew did not get enough sleep.
Upon hearing that our flight was cancelled, we then were redirected to Delta’s fourth attempt at getting to JFK. This time, Delta changed our flight so that we would fly to JFK, with a layover in Detroit, getting us into JFK at 11:55pm on Monday. When we arrived in Detroit at 10:41pm, we were told that we would still be flying to JFK that night, but that it was delayed. We were told every half an hour that they were still planning on flying that night, until 3am when they finally told us that the flight was pushed until 8am. We were given two different random reasons. The first was that it was mechanical issues, and the next was that there was no pilot. At this point, we had nowhere to sleep other than on the floor of Detroit’s very cold airport, and they also ran out of blankets.
I wish I could say that the story ended there, and that we finally got on our 8am flight. At 6:30am, however, that flight also got cancelled altogether, again with no explanation given to us. We then rushed to be rebooked to another flight to NYC and got booked to the DL1948 12:10pm to LGA. We felt fortunate at this point that this flight ended up being only two+ hours delayed. Explanations were provided, as there were many. First, the stewardess did not arrive. Next, we had to wait for catering. Finally, we were told that we had to wait for fuel.
We finally arrived in LGA on Tuesday, January 8th at 4:36pm with no luggage, as our luggage was directed to JFK. This is certainly different than our expected arrival in JFK on Saturday, January 4th at 9:10pm.
I should mention that this all happened in addition to the difficulties we had even getting to Denmark in the first place. Our flight was scheduled from JFK to Billund, with layovers in Brussels and Amsterdam. Due to a flight delay from Brussels from Amsterdam, we were not able to make our flight from Amsterdam to Billund, and were rerouted to Copenhagen. From there, we had to take a three hour train from Copenhagen to our arrival destination Billund, paid out-of-pocket.
Sincerely,
Mr. and Mrs. Tired and Pissed Off
210
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
WOAH….hold up…there is SO much wrong with this…I *STRONGLY* suggest you do some searching on-line regarding EU travel rules…. Europe has much strong consume protection laws in general, and especially with regard to air travel. When ANY airline that flies FROM Europe to another destination fails to get you their within a reasonable amount of time they have to pay you CASH. In this case the EU rules would apply to your cancelled London->JFK flight…(all the problems once you got to the U.S. are NOT covered by EU rules). Seriously do some checking and when you do write to the airline your message should cite the appropriate EU rule AND should be MUCH more concise than your story above…. To start google "EU flight cancellation rules"
Also look for the app "Your Passenger Rights" I have it on my iPhone for when I travel in Europe.
I am not by any means saying this was not a flight from hell. I am, however, surprised that your original itinerary was a flight from Denmark to JFK and included two layovers, when this could easily be a direct flight. Again, I'm surprised Amsterdam to JFK was a two-layover flight (including going way past JFK and then back, as I've flown direct from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. That just seems like a lot of extra flying/trip legs to get to where you're going, even without all the delays/cancellations.