A couple of weeks ago I booked a flight with Delta Airlines to an international destination that I’ve been wanting to visit for a while now. For the sake of this narrative, let’s just refer to this place as “Aceland”. 1
The flight had one stop in Minneapolis – St. Paul before my international transfer.
Well… three days after I plunked my credit card down for my plane ticket, I get an email stating that my first flight to Minneapolis was rescheduled/changed/delayed, leaving me with a paltry 41 minute layover to rush across the airport for my flight to “Aceland”. 2
41 minutes for a transfer to an international flight.3
This airline only does one flight a day to this particular destination, so missing the connecting flight would force me to waste away for 24 hours in Minneapolis.4
So I called customer service and kindly asked if they could possibly put me on a different flight.5
The conversation went something like this:
Agent: Well, the airline policy is that 40 minutes is the minimum necessary time to make an international transfer.
Me: … uh… what…
Agent: Yes. Since your transfer is 41 minutes, you should be able to make it. 6
Me: Well, I happened to check, and there is another flight that goes through JFK with a 3 hour layover, and that flight has the exact same cost as mine. Is there anyway to switch me over to that flight?
Agent: Unfortunately, since your current layover is above the 40 minute minimum, that would cost you a fee for a flight change.
Me: … How much is that fee?
Agent: [clicking of keys on keyboard]7 Three hundred forty-nine dollars, sir.
Me: What the… so basically I’m going to lose a day in “Aceland” because there’s no way in heck I’m going to be able to make that transfer in 41 minutes. And the only way to fix that is if I let you guys extort me for another $350?
Agent: …yes that is the bottom line. I am sorry but that is the airline’s policy.
Me: What?!?! This is… ($*&%*#$) Unbelievable.
And that put me in a pretty foul mood for this entire past week. Do I seriously fork up another $350 to preserve day 1 of my long-planned vacation? Or do I start hitting up the gym to practice for my cross-terminal dash in a couple of months? 8
Well the very next day after the above phone convo, there was an incident with United Airlines involving a bloodied-up overbooked passenger.
Mind you, I wasn’t flying with United, but the airlines tend to be very sensitive in competing with one another for PR.9
Four days later, I decided to give Delta customer service another call to give it another shot. Who knows, right?
This time the call basically went like this:
Agent: Hmm. We have a flight that goes through JFK with a 3 hour layover, would you like us to put you on that flight instead?
Me: Would there be a charge for changing my flight?
Agent: Absolutely not.
Me: That would be fantastic.
Agent: Great! I’m emailing you your new itinerary now…
Thanks, United.
- Of course it’s not actually named “Aceland”… but don’t worry about it. [↩]
- Don’t try to guess. It’s not worth the chase. [↩]
- If you’ve never flown internationally… 60 minutes would be more interesting than you’d like. [↩]
- Emphasis on the words: “waste away” and “Minneapolis” [↩]
- One that was basically not guaranteed to screw me out of a full day of my trip [↩]
- Again: horse manure [↩]
- or perhaps fake sounds of keys clicking on a fake keyboard…? [↩]
- And would my baggage successfully even make the transfer in that short a time? I wonder… [↩]
- This bit on using game theory to deal with overbooked flights was an interesting read, I thought. [↩]