Travelers United delivers letter to Delta Air Lines CEO: Treat airline passengers right

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Travelers United today delivered an open letter to the CEO of Delta Air Lines, Ed Bastien.

The letter demands for the airline to treat their passengers and customers right.

It reads:

Travelers United today delivered an open letter to the CEO of Delta Air Lines, Ed Bastien.

The letter demands for the airline to treat their passengers and customers right.

It reads:

These cancellations and delays are the fault of Delta Air Lines, not your passengers.

With dismay, we look at the Delta Air Lines corporate response to the massive failure of its computer systems that resulted in thousands of flight cancellations and delays. As of today, the delays and cancellations continue across your system.

Your airline should realize that these cancellations and delays are the fault of Delta Air Lines alone. Passengers should not be punished for Deltaโ€™s incompetence.

Video apologies, notwithstanding, it is your customers who are bearing the burden of Deltaโ€™s IT and communications failures together with the delays and cancellations of thousands of flights. Families have missed weddings, organized tours and cruises. Businessmen have missed meetings. And, many others have been faced with financial repercussions because of Deltaโ€™s technology failure.


Your airlineโ€™s customer service response has been disappointing. This event was not a cancellation of choice by passengers, nor was it an “Act of God.” This is a failure by Delta.

Passengers are being asked to bear the burden of Deltaโ€™s failures.
Deltaโ€™s requirements that passengers rearrange their travels by August 12th (now August 21st) is unreasonable. Plus, Deltaโ€™s mandate that changes made after that time be subject to differences in airfares, it simply unfair and will costs travelers millions of dollars for Deltaโ€™s failures.

The $200 airline scrip donation is clearly inadequte. For a family facing cancellation or long delays of flights, the amount does not even cover the cost of food and lodging.

Consumer rights and compensation, included in your contract of carriage, European Union rules and the Montreal Convention have not been explained clearly to passengers.

Travelers were left to fend for themselves and not offered overnight accommodations and meals. Plus, additional telephone support staff is needed immediately to prevent two-plus-hour wait times.

Your airlineโ€™s deliberate elimination of interline agreements, especially with American Airlines, the countryโ€™s largest carrier, has limited your airlineโ€™s ability to respond to this catastrophe.

Travelers United and FlyersRights are joining together to ask that Delta Air Lines makes their passengers whole. Our organizations stand together with U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal who clearly pointed to the path that Delta should follow.

โ€œAfter this catastrophic, system-wide implosion, Delta owes every passenger a full refund โ€” no questions asked โ€“ or rescheduled flights without costs or time limits.

This airline must do more than just waive change fees. It must make each and every customer whole again. Passengers wishing to travel on the airline shouldnโ€™t be restricted by arbitrary time constraints and should be allowed to rebook on their timetable โ€“ not Deltaโ€™s. Delta should not hide behind pages of legalese. Full compensation or free, flexible rebooking for missed flights and ruined travel plans is whatโ€™s fair and right.โ€

Delta should also inform all passengers of their rights according to their contract of carriage, DOT regulations and international regulations and treaties.

Delta has apologized publicly. Now, it should do what is fair and right for its passengers.

Travelers United (formerly Consumer Travel Alliance) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that works to provide consumers an articulate and reasoned voice in decisions that affect travel consumers across travelโ€™s entire spectrum โ€” airlines, rental cars, cruise lines, rail and hotels. Travelers Unitedโ€™s staff gathers facts, analyzes issues, and disseminates that information to the public, the travel industry, regulators and policy makers.

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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