A Delta Airlines horror story (or Why I Never Made it to Africa)
Airport horror stories are like assholes: Everybody has one. But the thing that happened to my partner and me last week, well, it's pretty crazy. It's also the kind of experience that makes me think twice about ever flying on Delta again. Not that it's any better with any of the other carriers these days.
We'd been looking forward to our Africa trip for weeks. We had plans to visit South Africa and Zambia, four cities in 10 nights, with a handful of small side excursions along the way. We'd both endured a regimen of vaccinations and had started taking anti-malaria pills two days before traveling. Everything was good to go, or so we thought.
We arrived at the Atlanta airport with plenty of time before our evening flight to Johannesburg — which never happens with us. We're usually the two you see running to the gate just before the door closes.
As we made our way up to the gate, the BF was ahead of me in line. He handed his passport to the Delta agent, a short, spinster-looking woman who might've been Ugly Betty's aunt. The agent took his passport, did a fast flip through the pages, then said, "You're not flying. Next!"
The BF thought she was kidding. So did I.
"Excuse me?" he said.
Ugly Betty took the passport again, did another flip-through, then repeated, "You're not flying today. You don't have any blank pages. Next."
What? No explanation, no sympathy. Just, "Next."
At this point I stepped forward and asked her what the deal was. The BF said, "Are you joking?"
She asked to see my passport and did the same flipping motion.
"It looks like you do have some blank pages, so you can fly. But this guy can't. He'll need to go back to the ticket desk. Next."
I think we were both in shock and couldn't believe that this woman could treat us with such blatant disrespect, such disregard. Ugly Betty gave us a look like we were being irrational and holding up the line.
"Sir," she said to me, raising her voice, "Are you going to get on the flight or not?"
I told her I wasn't about to get on the plane without my partner and that we needed someone to explain to us what was going on. Ugly Betty rolled her eyes and yelled for another agent to come over and take her post.
She hurried us back up to the gate counter and asked for both of our passports again. Then, she sighed and said that it was a rule with South Africa. You have to have two fully blank visa pages in your passport or you won't be allowed to enter the country.
This was news to both of us, obviously.
"How were we supposed to know this?" the BF said.
"You should have done your homework," Ugly Betty said. "If you were frequent travelers, you would have known."
Hello — the guy has no blank pages in his passport! Doesn't that say "frequent traveler" to you?
We asked what the airline normally tells passengers when this sort of thing happens. A tall, heavyset Delta agent who was working next to Ugly Betty chimed in that they usually send folks to the New Orleans Passport Office to get more blank pages added. But all the flights to New Orleans had left for the day, he said.
At least he was friendly. Ugly Betty was giving us a look like she'd like to see us dead. I've never been treated so poorly by an airline employee in my life.
She told us to go talk to the ticket desk in the international terminal, then walked away. I should have written down her name, but I was still in shock. We both were.
We gathered up our bags and went in search of the Delta ticket desk. It was hard to miss: The line snaked back from the center of Terminal E almost to the escalators.
We stood in that line for two impossible hours.
The BF pulled out his laptop and began investigating options for getting more pages added to his passport. Turns out that advice the helpful guy had given us back at the gate was wrong: The New Orleans Passport Office will not see you without an appointment. The first available slot was five days away. So, if we had taken his advice and boarded a flight to Louisiana, we would've been stuck in the Big Easy for a week. (Though, honestly, there are worse places to be stranded.)
After about an hour in the ticket line, the tall Delta guy from the gate came through the line and handed out cups of water to the people waiting. A nice gesture, I'll admit.
We finally made it to a ticket agent, a tired-eyed lady who looked like Aretha Franklin before she gained all that weight. The ticket lady listened to our story with no sympathy. The tall man came over to try and help. Bless him.
After plenty of back-and-forth on what our best options were, we decided to just fly home to London and try to get the passport issue sorted at the U.S. Embassy here. Aretha asked to see our boarding passes then, she suddenly threw up her hands in a motion that said, "Git!"
"Oh," she said, "this ticket was booked on SkyMiles. We can't handle no Miles tickets here at this desk. You gotta use the telephones."
She pointed us toward the bank of red "help" phones beyond the desk — phones that had been sitting open during our two-hour tour of the queue.
"Next!" Aretha said.
The BF didn't lose his temper, though I knew he was about to.
"So what you're telling me is, because I'm a loyal customer and someone who accumulates SkyMiles and then uses them on an award ticket, I don't get to talk to a person? That whole business model is just backwards."
"That's just the way it is," she said.
We were on hold for almost an hour at the red "help" phones. Another hour. It was getting close to midnight by now. I was worried about where we were going to spend the night.
As we stood there waiting, I watched a sorority girl have a complete meltdown at the ticket desk. She had missed her connecting flight while her plane sat on the tarmac for an hour. The ticket agent (not Aretha) talked to her like she was a dog who had peed on the rug. The girl's face was bright pink and snot was coming out of her nose. The Delta agent was as cold as concrete.
All of this happened almost a week ago. We finally made it back to London and have since mailed our passports off to have more pages added. Our Africa trip has been postponed indefinitely.
I guess I'm still in shock. I'll admit that I'm angry. I'm mad that we didn't know about South Africa's passport rules. That's probably my own fault — but I'm surprised that the airline doesn't take the time to alert its passengers beforehand, especially if other travelers experience this same problem. That one tiny oversight led to us losing thousands of dollars in hotel reservations and missed flights, not to mention extending our visit to Atlanta by a few unplanned days.
The passport issue aside, I'm still reeling at the way the Delta employees treated us — and everyone else around us. We've been dedicated Delta customers for decades. The BF is even a Medallion member. It just seems like the airlines don't care anymore. We're not customers; we're cattle. The industry is broken. Next!
posted by TRAYB at
7:04 AM
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