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No, this isn’t a satirical post like the ones you’ll find at the Takeoff Nap (another Boarding Area blog).
Some Delta Air Lines corporate office employees are about to get a heck of a field trip: dealing with passengers at airports.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian made that an announcement — and an apology to Delta passengers — in an email sent to the carrier’s customers today. Coincidentally (or not), the message was sent the same day off-duty Delta pilots around the country took to picket lines, protesting their working conditions, amongst other grievances.the same day off-duty Delta pilots around the country took to picket lines, protesting their working conditions, amongst other grievances.
“I apologize.”
Mr. Bastian didn’t waste much time getting in front of Delta’s highly-publicized operational issues
I know many of you may have experienced disruptions, sometimes significant, in your travels as we build our operation back from the depths of 2020 while accommodating a record level of demand.
If you’ve encountered delays and cancellations recently, I apologize. We’ve spent years establishing Delta as the industry leader in reliability, and though the majority of our flights continue to operate on time, this level of disruption and uncertainty is unacceptable. You choose to invest your time, resources and loyalty with Delta and you’ve rightly come to expect a world-class experience on every flight, and that includes the best reliability in the business.
He noted Delta operated “over 96% of our scheduled departures, with more than 80% of our flights arriving within 14 minutes of their scheduled arrival time.”
Out of the Office and Into the Frying Pan Airport
Meanwhile, some of Delta’s office personnel will assist certain airport operations.
“We’ve activated our Peach Corps,” Mr. Bastian said, “a program that brings in hundreds of employees from our corporate offices to the airports in Atlanta and New York to assist with check-in, baggage drop-off, airport wayfinding, using kiosks, serving you at our Delta Sky Clubs and other helpful tasks.”
That sends a chill down my spine. My goodness, can you imagine doing from your comfortable office gig to a chaotic airport dealing with angry or flustered passengers? One day, you’re answering phones or helping write a press release. The next, someone is screaming at you because the weather is your fault and they can’t believe you designed “this stupid airport!” in such a poor fashion.
What’s Delta Doing to Remedy the Problems?
“The environment we’re navigating today is unlike anything we’ve ever faced, but Delta is no stranger to challenging times, and our commitment to you is as strong as ever,” Mr. Bastian wrote. “We won’t stop until we’ve made things right, and we’ll never stop improving for you.”
So, how does that happen?
Mr. Bastian promoted the usual suspects: airport transformations and Delta Sky Clubs, Delta.com, the Fly Delta app, and all that. He gave a few more specifics:
- Working with the FAA “on improving processes for air traffic management” that (theoretically) will reduce delays and cancellations chalked up to bad weather
- Hiring “a record number” of personnel in reservations and customer service, pilots, cabin crew, aircraft maintenance, etc.
- Implementing “more buffer room to help us absorb and adjust when factors like summer thunderstorms disrupt the operation”
I thought it was, overall a pretty good email. Mr. Bastian acknowledged some of the problems Delta has experienced (and they’re not the only airline with those issues) and told customers what the plan is to fix them.
Godspeed to the Peach Corp.
What do you think?
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I wish them luck. If their office employees don’t have customer service backgrounds, they’re in for a rude shock. Talk about being tossed in the deep end!
Back when Independence Air was around (20+ years ago) I was one of those office people sent to IAD to help out during the holidays. I had been a customer service supervisor/trainer for another carrier for over 20 years, so it was a cakewalk for me. Not so for some of my fellow officemates, who got to see what it’s like up close and personal.
I hope those folks learn something from their experiences and take it back to Headquarters.
It was a good move but my ears are deaf at the moment. Enough so that we’ve decided to drive from AVL to GRR for a summer family/vacation this year. Booking (my first choice) Delta or any other “major” carrier gives me the same sinking feeling as booking a trip on Allegiant. NOT GOOD. I’d rather drive (not) than play 50/50 roulette on will we cancel at home base or get stranded in a hub. Hoping things improve.
“…heck of a field trip: dealing with passengers at airports.”
Well written Chris.
Yeah, I have no doubt that all the office workers are thrilled. A good move by management. I just hope raiding the offices of workers does not cause issues elsewhere.
At least they acknowledge what others know, there is a service problem. So far, I have had no issues. However I have learned to travel with the attitude that life happens and given weather will cause calamity on a semi regular basis, it still beats taking the bus… at least for me.
To little too late for me. 2 weeks ago I had a flight delayed at 2:41am that was due to leave at 11am. When I awoke at 6am I had zero options for the next 36 hours. Since I was returning in 48 hours that wasn’t going to work. I tried to call the platinum line and it said 70 minutes. About every 15 minutes I had to input to stay on hold and each time it told me my hold time was going up about 30-45 minutes beyond the previous estimate. After being on hold 2 hours I just canceled my trip. I submitted a complaint which I’m sure will never be read. I’ve been extremely loyal to Delta over the past 7 years, even more so over the last 2 where I continued to fly a couple times a month, but I’m burning my stash of 600k miles and ditching my co-branded Amex card and becoming a free agent. Well I’m trying to burn the miles since I’m guessing the flights I’ve booked over the next few months probably won’t work well either. Was nice while it lasted. I’ll probably regret it, but I think the only way corporations learn is hitting them in the wallet. Symbolic of course, but it’s all I can do.
Ugh, that stinks. Sorry to hear that.
The second bullet point from Bastian’s letter is the key. Hiring a record number of employees admits that Delta, and other airlines, got rid of too many people during the pandemic and expanded schedules too quickly. These problems aren’t about weather or Air Traffic Control.
Suggest Delta Ailines replace their CEO due to poor management that caused the unnecessary chaos at the airports.
A good number of Delta employees actually enjoy heading to the airport to volunteer (not quite the ‘death sentence’ you make it out to be ). Peach Corps is often activated around busy holiday periods or times with high expected customer volume, but rarely gets a public shout-out like Ed’s note today.
Thanks for the info!
While the peach corps aren’t the ones that over committed the operation, hopefully they will get an earful from the customers and the front line staff and be honest enough to report back the reality. Delta has cancelled hundreds of flights on most weekends since memorial day and all the airline could do was write a slick email with boiler plate “actions” and passing blame around weeks later. Meanwhile the delta top level execs collect huge bonuses setup on short term metrics that are literally imploding the company. Skyclubs are over sold, flights are oversold and staff is woefully inadequate. Delta took billions in covid aid and this is the best they could do? Awful. Time for a CEO change.
Good article, Chris and it was a nice piece from Mr Bastian. Delta is still the best of the bunch but still slipping from year to year since NW merger. They grow the top number but don’t scale up the services and offerings to meet the growth. My only hope is that plenty of Revenue Management folks get to the airport to provide service to passengers. If Revenue Management and Operations personnel were required to do at least one week a year at the ticket counter or gate agent duties, I think there might be a little bit different feel. (I’m not naive, just a little bit different feel)
Thanks for the comment, Aland!
The problem is not the pilots, flight attendants, gate agents, ground people, etc. The problem is Management from the CEO and trickling down and running the airline. Think about it. Send all the management from the top to supervisors on a vacation and the airline will still run. With some hiccups of course. Send all the pilots, flight attendants, gate and ground on a vacation and what happens ? You don’t have an airline anymore! CEO’s , COO’S, ETC. and management are OVER VALUED AND OVERPAID! It’s all about the stock options, and golden parachutes and $$$$$$ they can give themselves. They are sleeping well, eating well, and enjoying their mansions and expensive toys all while the workers suffer and and fight for basic cost of living raises and being treated with decency..
I worked for Delta 33 years mostly in public contact in JAN and DFW. It takes a special person to work with airline customers. Come of your office employees might be capable of the pressure but not all. Have you thought about recruiting some of your retirees to step back in for a while. The ones who really put the customer first while maintaining the spirit of keeping Delta’s image number one.