The other day, my husband and I flew from Nashville to Los Angeles for a show at Pepperdine University. We flew Delta Airlines, as usual, since we have gold status with them and we love the perks. I mean, what’s not to love about 3 free bags a piece without having to pay overweight fees, free upgrades, priority boarding, and getting through security faster? I can’t think of anything not to love...until Delta stole my new coat.
Here’s the story: We boarded our flight to LAX in Atlanta (after being re-routed because of a delayed flight from Memphis) and took our middle seats. I took my coat and placed in the overhead bin above my seat and took my bag and tucked it under the seat in front of me. I was in the middle seat and didn’t want to have to get up 10 times to get stuff in and out of it. Fortunately, our flight wasn’t full and there were a bunch of seats available together (we are never seated together for some reason) so we re-located about 10 seats back at the back of the plane. There we stayed for the next 4.5 hours.
Upon our arrival into LAX around 6pm, we gathered our stuff and were the last people off the plane. We walked down to baggage claim where we were concerned that our bags wouldn’t be because of our last minute flight re-route, and began the 30 minute wait until they finally popped down the conveyer belt. It wasn’t until I got in the rental car shuttle that I realized I didn’t have my coat.
45 minutes had passed since I had gotten off the plane.
I told the shuttle driver to let me off and proceeded to run back up the stairs to the ticketing counter and from terminal 3 to 5 at LAX. Anyone who’s ever been to LAX knows that terminal 3 isn’t all that close to terminal 5. After getting up to the ticketing counter, I was told that I had to go back downstairs to the lost luggage counter because when things are left on the plane, they are immediately taken down to that counter. That’s “Delta procedure”.
So I ran down to the lost luggage counter where I was told that 55 minutes had passed since I had gotten off the plane and they would call up to the gate to see where my jacket was. After a brief conversation, I was told that a few things had been taken from the plane, but that the plane had been moved to the hangar and she didn’t know what had happened to those items.
For real?
I was then assured that it should turn up since there were things taken from the plane and that I could come and pick it up when I flew out a few days later. They had my information and I left the airport. This was mistake #2. (Mistake #1 was leaving the coat on the plane in the first place).
The day before we were to fly out, we drove back from San Diego and went to see if it was there. I was told by the lost luggage lady that unless I received a phone call, then my coat hadn’t turned up. She was confused why I would even think it would be there and that things left on the plane rarely show up there. But when I asked if it was “Delta procedure” to take forgotten items from the gate to that counter, she replied, “Yes it is.”. Hmmm...
I was then told that there was nothing she could do and that I needed to call Delta or get on Delta.com to file a complaint. So I called Delta. The first woman I talked to at Priority Services said that there wasn’t anything that she could do since she wasn’t the complaints department. She was friendly and gave me the numbers that I needed to call and then said that she hoped I could find my coat, but that it’s “unlikely since so many things get stolen when they are left on the plane. No joke.
So I call Delta helpline #2, and after going through the automated prompts, the machine says that things left on a plane are out of their control. Click. Hung up on me.
After having lit up Twitter with my complaint, I get a reply from @deltaassist telling me that they are sorry that this happened to me and here’s the link to file a formal complaint. Thanks for the “assistance” anonymous twitter gopher.
Helpline #3 is me begging the automated machine to let me speak to a representative. The woman I get tells me the same thing. There is a procedure that’s supposed to be followed, but it’s not their problem. I was told that I could file a formal complaint and then the “higher-ups” at corporate would take care of it. Upon hearing this, I told the girl that I would bet Delta gets thousands of these “formal complaints” a day about similar things and that my assumption was that this was nothing more than a formality to get me to shut up. I told her that if the procedure is to take things left on the plane to the lost baggage claim and they fail to do that, then the only thing I can conclude is that I have a cute coat and someone decided to steal it, and now I was getting the run around to make me shut up.
After putting me on hold, she asked me what my jacket cost. I told her it was $100. She informed me that I would receive a check from them in 25 business days for $100 and I could buy a new one. Aw thanks.
I will gladly take my $100, but I can’t get that coat again. And the fact of a lost/stolen coat is not what I take issue with. I take issue with a lack of care and laziness to do ones job. If you have a procedure, there’s no reason that you should have a problem following it. Delta is a huge company that I devote thousands and thousands of airline miles to, but if I can’t trust that my things are safe when I make a mistake, why stick with them? I am frustrated that big companies give you the run around and try to pacify the angry public with ineffective “solution” tactics. If the job was done right the first time, fewer people would be upset...but that’s just not the case. It’s like big companies are gluttons for punishment.
I wish that Delta would have been helpful and that it didn’t take 4 phone calls to different people and 2 trips to the lost baggage to have someone do something about it. I wish that my coat hadn’t been stolen. And I wish that integrity and customer service weren’t things that have been lost over the decades.
Bad form Delta.
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