The Letter I Wrote to Delta Airlines

To whom it may concern,

My name is Jared Palmer, and I was a passenger on flight 4422 from Atlanta to Houston.  Due to weather problems in Houston on October 16, the flight was diverted to New Orleans for refueling.  The flight attendants informed us that there would be gate agents there to help us figure out our options.  The pilot also told us he had reached his flying limit for the day and would not be able to bring us on into Houston.

After we got off the plane in New Orleans, we waited twenty or thirty minutes came and told us that Delta was not responsible for "acts of God" and that nothing more would be done for us.  She suggested calling Delta's 800 number to book another flight the next morning, but said that Delta was not responsible for those flights - we would have to purchase new tickets.  Several people tried to call, but to my knowledge none got through.  We were told there were no flights leaving New Orleans that night.  One of the security guards there at the gate then told us that how we got to Houston was "not our problem" and insisted that everyone leave the terminal.

I was able to get a seat on a Southwest flight from Noew Orleans to Houston's Hobby Airport that same evening, as did two of three others I recognized from the flight.  Again, this was agter we'd been told nothing else would be leaving the airport that night.  The gate agent probably meant that no other Delta flights would be leaving, but that's not what she said.

I understand that Delta cannot be held responsible for the bad weather, but running a plane out of gas on a two-hour flight and pushing a pilot to his 16-hour maximum cannot be deemed "acts of God."  Furthermore, my wife had requested status updates via telephone and email, and was aware of the initial delays.  However, no notification was ever given that the flight was rerouted to New Orleans, and she was unable to get that information from Delta representatives at the Houston Airport.  They were extremely rude to her, and she was only able to find out where the flight had actually landed through a third-party website.

I had been traveling in order to attend my grandmother's funeral.  This ordeal was a horrible way to end an already unpleasant weekend.  Considering that Delta fell short in many areas - pilot scheduling, lack of refueling, misinformation at the gate, lack of rerouting notification, and the rudeness of the Houston representatives - reimbursement of the $121.30 I payed to get home is the barest minimum Delta can do.  It will take much more than that before I trust myself or my safety to Delta's care again.