So this past weekend, I travelled from New York City Airport (JFK) back to Seattle. On the way back I faced few of the most awful costumer services experiences ever and I even found few pieces of glass in my salad. On top of that Delta’s response to my complaint email was shockingly disappointing.
So let me tell you about my recent experiences.
1) Rude ticketing and gate agents in JFK.
When we arrived, at JFK 2.5 hours before take off, we were hoping to get a companion upgrade for me. Since my girlfriend is a Delta Airlines Platinum Status member and is entitled to a companion upgrade. Not allowing us the upgrade is one thing. But the rude attitude and not knowing their own company policy and in addition, constantly trying to charge me $250 dollars for put me on a standby for upgrade is just plan wrong. Especially, when in the end, when we were onboard the airplane there were two empty first class seats available. So as a result a long email letter was written to the customer service about the situation. After some back and forth verification, Delta’s customer service finally admitted to their mistakes and apologized. They also provided 15000 miles to our frequent flier account each. A simple upgrade or even better customer respect in the beginning would have prevented all of this drama. This was the good response.
2) Your onboard food safety is only worth 3700 sky miles!!!
So on the plane back home I found the following pieces of glass in my $8 dollar salad.
On the flight when I tell the flight attendant of the situation the response I got was simply… oh we will refund you but tell your complaints to our website.
So I wrote the following email to Delta.com
Dear Sir or Madam,
My name is Min-Hsao Chen. I’ve been flying with Delta for over ten years, and my experience with Delta’s services was fairly good until last night.
During my flight from JFK to Seattle, I ordered a Southwestern Caesar Salad with Cajun Chicken for $8 for dinner. The salad was tasted kind of bad, but I was hungry. Half way through eating my salad, I ,all the suddenly, bite into something hard. When I spit the mystery item in my hand, it was two pieces of small broken glass. I immediately spit out the rest of the contents in my mouth into the salad container. I think there may have been other pieces in there. You can see a picture of the two pieces that I found in my mouth here.
(http://tweetphoto.com/17237670)
I immediately notified the flight attendants and the response I’ve
receive was shocking and very disappointing and unsettling. When I notified the Delta flight attendant of what has happened and that I’ve found, she simply said that “oh.. don’t eat that salad anymore and we will refund your money”. Then about 15 minutes later another attendant came by and I told her again of what happened, and she simply stated that they do not prepared the food and I need to complain to the delta.com website. Finally about 20-25 minutes after I notified the attendants, they came by and collected my credit card and refund my 8 dollars.
It is not the 8 dollars that I am concerned about, but how the flight attendants reacted to the situation. The situation was disappointing and very unprofessional. The first impression I received from the flight attendants were that they don’t really care. Even now, I am still uncertain if I swallowed any glass or maybe potentially cut my throat or mouth. I am continuing to monitor my condition. The point is, the flight attends did not show any
care and concern and that was very disappointing with their very poor customer service. In addition, when I ask the flight attendant again, they simply shifted the blame to someone else by stating that they did not prepare the food and I should contact someone else. This response was totally, unfriendly and unacceptable. A simple response of “are you ok?” and
“what can we do to help you?” would have made a world of difference in my impression and my feel of Delta’s culture.
To recap, please check with your food service provider and make sure that there are no more glass pieces in your salads. I do not want anyone else be caught in the same situation as I or even worst if anyone get hurt because of the glass in their food. Second, please re-evaluate your exception handling procedures with your flight attendants. This situation could have been a none issue if the attitude and the actions of the flight attendants were much better. All in all, I think it will be a benefit to the over all public view of Delta Airlines.
Thank you for your time and please let me know if you need any additional information regarding my experience and regarding the broken glass in my food.
Thanks again for your time and looking forward to hear Delta’s Response.
Min-Hsao Chen
PS. I will be posting this story on my blog and other social networking site. I am hoping to hear a response from Delta.
Delta Airline’s Response is a follows…
Continue reading My Awful Experience with Delta Airlines!!!
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