Oh the places you'll go and excuses you'll hear!

Flight delayed due to weather... acceptable. Flight delayed due to losing a crew member in the aircraft... huh? On my way to NY on Monday that is exactly what I heard on the PA system. Luckily it was not my flight, but I did have to go to the counter and make sure that I heard correctly. Did you mean to say flight delayed due to a crew member within the airport? Nope. A crew member was unaccounted for on the aircraft. We're not talking about a 757, it's a small Canadair Regional Jet. Did you look under the seats? Maybe someone had a bad muffin this morning and they're still in the restroom? Important note to Delta management... next time please lie to me. If your crew member cannot find their way around a tiny little aircraft, I really have no business being on that flight.

Flight delayed due to aircraft trouble... somewhat acceptable. Flight delayed 10 minutes for additional pilot rest. Again, did I hear that correctly? On my flight from Binghamton NY this morning I hear this over the PA system. Luckily again it was not my flight, but bless those poor people who had to get on that plane! My interpretation was "flight delayed so we can brew our hungover party pilot a little cup of strong black joe to take the edge off". Ten minutes of rest probably not going to help a whole lot if he's just plain tired. Ten minutes to pop an advil and grab some coffee, a little more believeable.

Maybe someone from Delta will stumble upon this blog and provide some input, or better yet a translation of what exactly was happening, because I cannot believe for a minute that you lost a crewmember above your aircraft or that the pilot requested 10 minutes of rest before his first flight of the morning.

Now, as a business person... imagine using a line like that on your customers... and have your business survive long enough to tell about it. I must note however that the customer service experience has not been all that bad aside from those two items noted above. I did have one stewardess who popped one too many happy pills on the way from Cincinatti to Detroit. She insisted on adding some humour (ladies and gentleman whose flight ends in Detroit we have a single and eligible pilot looking for a date tonight... any takers?) and then announcing that after take-off she would be hosting a kereoke contest and doing the Macarena. I'm just glad that I didn't see her on my 6am flight this morning, that's a little much when I could use another 10 minutes of rest!