Delta Responds to Me About My Complaint

An update for all of you: after I posted my story two days ago on Monday about having filed a complaint with Delta when my seat next to Steve on a recent flight from Atlanta to Charlotte was taken from me as my boarding pass was scanned and assigned to another passenger, though there were empty seats in comfort class, to which we had been told we were being upgraded, I got a reply from Delta to my complaint at long last on Tuesday. As my posting on Monday states, immediately after I emailed my complaint about this matter to Delta on May 25, I got back an acknowledgment from Delta stating that I would receive a response to the complaint before 30 days had passed.

June 25 came and went and when I had not gotten any response — though I sent a reminder to Delta on June 21 that I was awaiting their response before 30 days had elapsed — I decided to post the story.

I appreciate the response Delta finally sent me yesterday, but am still very unclear about the details regarding what happened. The Delta customer service representative tells me Delta did not target us as a same-sex couple. She also states that, if we want to avoid such separations after we book seats side by side (we've now experienced them routinely on Delta flights in the recent past), we should make our reservation as a single reservation for both of us.

But that's what we did, and that's what Steve explained to the Delta representative when he called Delta as we returned from Charlotte to Little Rock via Atlanta, and found that — once again — the side-by-side seats he had booked for the two of us had been changed and we'd been separated. The Delta agent told him he had requested a separation of the tickets and the reservation.

He told her he had done no such thing and asked her how such a notice had been entered into their system about our reservations. At this point, she transferred him to another representative who worked it out so that we could have the side-by-side seats we had reserved weeks before the flight. 

We still have no clear word from Delta about how any of this happened and why it has happened to us repeatedly in the recent past. If I hear more, I will post again about this. I certainly want to give Delta credit, and I am grateful that Delta replied to my complaint yesterday and apologized for the inconvenience. 

At the same time, we want to understand why this is happening and pursue the matter so that it does not happen again to us — or to anyone else, for that matter, to any other couples traveling together who have booked their tickets on a single reservation.