Alaska Employee Bought DL Pax Ticket Home

lilxlakerbo1 · Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:40 pm

Looks like an Alaska employee just bought the airline some points of good faith.

http://consumerist.com/2015/03/23/al...cket-for-stranded-delta-passenger/

ytz · Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:53 pm

An amazing employee. Examples like these having me hoping that I get to fly AS some day!

tomcbaker · Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:00 pm

The original article is much more detailed than the one posted here; the passenger did go to both the AS and DL counters and the passenger received a travel voucher from the AS employee, who was probably using her credit card to pay the taxes on the voucher. Still amazing service!

http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/22/a...after-runaround-by-delta-airlines/

[Edited 2015-03-23 16:06:39]

[Edited 2015-03-23 16:07:10]

EA CO AS · Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:57 pm

Quoting tomcbaker (Reply 2):
the passenger received a travel voucher from the AS employee, who was probably using her credit card to pay the taxes on the voucher.

Actually, she ultimately elected to buy a revenue ticket for the customer:

Thomas says that’s when a woman named Judy who works with Alaska Airlines offered her a travel voucher. “Using her voucher, it was so kind of her. She’s filling it out and I thought she just had these free passes. At one point her coworkers were standing behind her saying ‘Judy! Judy! You don’t have to do that.’ And she says ‘You know what, I’m paying it forward, it’s OK.’ At this point I realize something is up and she pulls out her credit card and starts putting in her credit card information.”

That’s when Thomas was told Judy was paying for her ticket to ensure she was going to get home, rather than be put on standby.

I know of many employees - myself included - who have offered customers our personal non-rev "guest passes" to help them out when they were in a jam, but occasionally you come across someone who buys them a confirmed ticket with their own money or miles.

global1 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:28 am

Noble gesture,HOWEVER, some things just don't add up.

The weather problems and the ensuing mechanical are unfortunate. Flight crews often say that they will be assisted when they arrive. If, at that point, there are no other flights, they will be given a hotel voucher and booked for the next morning.

"The value of her return was used up when the passengers originally were rerouted and had to spend the night in SEA?

This passenger, traveling to a business meeting in California, had no credit card of her own, let alone money for a cup of coffee?

"Judy" then just took it upon herself to try to accommodate the passenger with a buddy pass and ended up charging the fare on her credit card?

There is an untold story here.

[Edited 2015-03-23 17:30:10]

[Edited 2015-03-23 17:47:25]

DeltaB717 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:54 am

My question is, with which airline did the lady originally make her booking? Was she travelling with DL on a DL ticket? Or travelling with DL on an AS ticket? I ask because, if it was the former, then AS seems to have been very interested when this lady arrived back at the customer service desk.

Either way, good on Judy for going above and beyond!

nyc2theworld · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:58 am

I'm sorry but if you are traveling for business then why isn't your business buying you a new ticket home?

LTC8K6 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:07 am

No good deed goes unpunished...

DeltaMD90 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:18 am

I love how such a nice deed quickly ignited into pissing match. Knew it would be messy when I saw the thread title

Can't we congratulate the AS employee and avoid picking a fight?

mayor · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:21 am

Quoting EA CO AS (Reply 4):

I know of many employees - myself included - who have offered customers our personal non-rev "guest passes" to help them out when they were in a jam, but occasionally you come across someone who buys them a confirmed ticket with their own money or miles.

Actually, in most cases, "guest passes" or "buddy passes" are right next to worthless in a situation like this.

Good for the AS employee, but in all reality, this kind of thing happens all the time.......some gets reported, some doesn't.

USAirALB · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:21 am

What an awesome employee, and a true gesture of respect and kindness.

That said, are there any rules the prohibit employees from doing this?

reality · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:45 am

Quoting mayor (Reply 11):
Good for the AS employee, but in all reality, this kind of thing happens all the time

I can't imagine that this kind of thing happens all the time. Employees spending hundreds of their own dollars to buy tickets for passengers? But good for Judy! Even if it turns out that is was a much smaller amount that was spent.

Quoting global1 (Reply 6):

Noble gesture,HOWEVER, some things just don't add up.

It does seem that part of this story is missing.

[Edited 2015-03-23 18:46:04]

MavyWavyATR · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:49 am

Now that's what I call great customer service! I wonder how DL will react to that.

FlyHossD · Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:59 am

It's a neat and interesting story, but during my career, I knew of other similar stories - and many "well beyond the call of duty" stories of employees going the extra mile or more for passengers. It's a shame that generally, only the bad news stories get reported.

FlyDeltaJets · Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:01 am

Kudos to that agent, that's what being a kind human is all about. We all should take a moment to nod our heads in approval of the kindness shown here.

threeifbyair · Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:11 am

Quoting nyc2theworld (Reply 8):
I'm sorry but if you are traveling for business then why isn't your business buying you a new ticket home?

Right. That is the weird part - my employer wouldn't leave me stranded without means to pay for a ticket. I'm supposed to use the corporate travel agent, but if it was a mess, I'd just buy whatever ticket I could get and expense it later. Nobody is going to fire you for that (at least, no halfway-decent person at a non-awful company).

pu · Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:11 am

Quoting DeltaB717 (Reply 7):
My question is, with which airline did the lady originally make her booking? Was she travelling with DL on a DL ticket? Or travelling with DL on an AS ticket? I

Actually, she probably had a DL ticket, 006 ticket stock, but flying on AS.

Delta doesn't fly SEA ONT.

SO, I'd say definitely she was booked on AS on the segments Seattle Ontario Seattle, but we can't tell from the information provided whose airplane she was booked on from YVR to SEA which was the delay that caused all the problems. It could have been either DL or AS (Horizon).

She would have checked in with Alaska in Ontario...

Quoting global1 (Reply 6):
There is an untold story here.

Sure there is. She checked in late and missed her AS flight to SEA because she didn't get through security in time. Then she went back to the Alaska counter. At that point there was the usual confusion when one airline has to reticket another airline's ticket...in this case AS was needing to revalidate 006 ticket because the pax missed the AS flight. Then an AS agent decided to be nice about it and bought her a ticket instead of letting her "go standby," which is presumably what AS does for passengers who miss a flight for being late.

I can't see that DL did anything wrong. BUT the AS agent certainly did everything right, well above the call of duty. However, the article was certainly headlined in a way to vilify Delta...but the big gesture by the AS agent was because she missed an AS flight....not sure calling her a "stranded Delta customer" is very accurate when it was Alaska she checked in with and who gave her a boarding pass for a flight she was too late to board.

Pu
Jesus, if you use too many airline and airport codes the posting editor goes nuts....

read the longer story at http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/22/a...after-runaround-by-delta-airlines/

[Edited 2015-03-23 19:18:14]

[Edited 2015-03-23 19:18:58]

[Edited 2015-03-23 19:22:45]

[Edited 2015-03-23 19:25:16]

[Edited 2015-03-23 19:27:01]

strfyr51 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 3:20 am

Blessings Be Upon Her !! That's really all that needs to be said.

PlanesNTrains · Tue Mar 24, 2015 3:40 am

Quoting mayor (Reply 11):
Actually, in most cases, "guest passes" or "buddy passes" are right next to worthless in a situation like this.

Ain't that the truth.

Quoting mayor (Reply 11):
Good for the AS employee, but in all reality, this kind of thing happens all the time.......some gets reported, some doesn't.

Which I think he eluded to in his comments.

Quoting threeifbyair (Reply 17):
Nobody is going to fire you for that (at least, no halfway-decent person at a non-awful company).

Well, I guess we know the kind of company this passenger works for. lol

-Dave

rdu2sfo · Tue Mar 24, 2015 3:54 am

What the AS employee did was great, but this story is not at all credible as it was reported.

First of all the two different stories linked in this thread are inconsistent. The story at the ops's link says the agent who purchased the ticket was in SEA. The other story, from news1130 (which seems to be the source for the other story), says that the agent purchased the ticket at ONT.

It seems impossible that Delta could have cancelled the ticket for the reason the passenger states (that her rebooking on the trip to California had "used the rest of the value of my entire ticket") but yet she was given paper work by AS at tty obvious that her ticket was cancelled by AS because she was too late to make the flight: "Thomas says she got to the gate and was told her ticket had been cancelled and the doors had been closed." The woman missed the AS flight causing her ticket to be cancelled by AS. Sorry if this sounds mean, but she should have been stranded. Good on the AS agent for bailing her out, but the mistake was made by the passenger.

[Edited 2015-03-23 21:04:56]

2175301 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 4:10 am

Quoting pu (Reply 18):
Sure there is. She checked in late and missed her AS flight to SEA because she didn't get through security in time.

I am not sure that is true. She very well could have gotten to the airport in time; and found that Delta had canceled her return ticket because of the mess getting her to where she should have been on the initial leg of the trip.

I have actually been in a similar situation with Delta with a canceled return flight back east after a messed up flight out west. Only I was at the airport something like 3 hours early as I had a ride with others who needed the earlier flight. It took about Delta about 2 hours to get my ticket straightened out. They could not get me on my original booked flight - but did get me on the next one.

So I can easily see how she could have been at the airport at the normal time; and then told after a while to just head to the gate and we will figure it out by the time you get there.

I can also recall being at an airport (In I believe South Carolina) for the first Delta flight to Atlanta (like 6:30 in the AM) and after I think 3 cancelations of consecutive flights to Atlanta being told by Delta that they could no longer get me to Milwaukee that day (2 of the 3 planes went tech at the airport - we were actually onboard and taxing to the runway on the first plane when it went tech). I had them book me on an AA flight to Chicago and rented a car to Milwaukee. It took Delta over a week to locate my luggage (they had never turned it over to AA, and they had not sent it to Milwaukee either).

Of course I have other stories by other airlines (and Delta is not the only airline to have canceled, or modified, one of my return tickets after I had flow to my destination); but, her story that it was Deltas fault is completely plausible to me.

Have a great day,

mayor · Tue Mar 24, 2015 5:09 am

Quoting reality (Reply 13):

Quoting mayor (Reply 11):
Good for the AS employee, but in all reality, this kind of thing happens all the time

I can't imagine that this kind of thing happens all the time.

I should have worded that differently....what I meant that employees go above and beyond all the time......not sure why it merits a thread on A.net. If we start posting stories like this on A.net, we'll need a separate "goody, goody" forum to hold them all.

Quoting PlanesNTrains (Reply 20):
Quoting mayor (Reply 11):
Actually, in most cases, "guest passes" or "buddy passes" are right next to worthless in a situation like this.

Ain't that the truth

And if you give them a "buddy pass" you take a chance on having them get pissed off at you.

TheRedBaron · Tue Mar 24, 2015 5:12 am

Great story !!! I am saddened to see Alaska, pulling out of some Mexico routes, they have great service. and now its AA or DL ( I really prefer DL, but Id take AS any day and twice on weekends).

TRB

ssteve · Tue Mar 24, 2015 5:38 am

I once had a very senior manager tell me something along the lines of "don't ask permission." The gist was, if you see something that needs doing, do it. You don't worry about bureaucratic fallout if it's just the right thing do to.

The guy was also an irrepressible blowhard, but it's true. Sometimes you stop worrying about what you're required to do, and just do what the situation dictates. We're all so caught up in procedure. Eff it.

No, you can't do it all the time, and no, you probably won't do it if your out-of-pocket is significant... but, man oh man must it be nice to just say, yeah, let me fix that for you rather than kicking someone who's down again.

PlanesNTrains · Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:03 am

Quoting mayor (Reply 23):
And if you give them a "buddy pass" you take a chance on having them get pissed off at you.

No doubt. My father-in-law flew on my sister-in-laws passes to SE Alaska one year for a fishing gig. When the return flight was full and he got bumped, he about brought the roof down with his shouting and what-not. She didn't lose her privileges, but she could have. Personally, I think she was crazy letting him use them.

-Dave

pu · Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:06 am

Yes, I am a dork, but I've slept and rethought about this. I have a new scenario consideration below:

Quoting rdu2sfo (Reply 21):
It seems impossible that Delta could have cancelled the ticket for the reason the passenger states (that her rebooking on the trip to California had "used the rest of the value of my entire ticket") but yet she was given paper work by AS at tty obvious that her ticket was cancelled by AS because she was too late to make the flight:

I see your point, but it does happen in rushed sloppy-ticketing situations that in order to get the passenger on a plane an agent will just grab the remaining open coupons of a ticket, even the return coupons, because the passenger needs at least one valid open coupon to board. I'm sure she was given this explanation - she wouldn't just come up with it herself.

1. She buys a ticket YVR SEA ONT SEA YVR from DL or her travel agent on DL ticket stock.
2. The (presumably, but not certainly) DL flight YVR SEA is very late, even diverts to PDX.
3. She spends the night in SEA courtesy of DL.
4. The next morning, DL agent in SEA revalidates her return trip coupons for the mornings AS outbound flight to ONT. Delta ticketing error.
5. Ready to go back home, she shows up at the ONT airport and checks in with AS. They find no valid tkt and tell her DL exchanged it.
6. A long discussion takes place between AS and DL. It is up to DL to get her a valid ticket but this is a painful process at this point because a completely new ticket has to be issued from thin air, with no form of payment.
7. Meanwhile, AS gives her a generic seat request card for the flight to SEA from ONT. She gets caught at TSA and misses the flight, the doors are closed.
8. She goes back to the AS ticket counter. More conferences with DL occur. DL says they can get her out tomorrow, AS says she can go standby for a flight later today.
9. The AS agent is sick of all this sh*t and just buys the poor woman a ticket.
10. She flies back to SEA and onward to YVR.

.....
I now believe DL did cause most of the problem here. The AS agent did definitely go above and beyond the call. Still, something seems orchestrated in this story and the fact that it became news suggests an effort to badmouth Delta.

Pu.

dsuairptman · Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:12 am

What a nice thing of that ticket agnet to do! It leaves a very good feeling and probably scores Alaska a dedicated pax away from DL.

PlanesNTrains · Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:35 am

Quoting dsuairptman (Reply 26):
What a nice thing of that ticket agnet to do! It leaves a very good feeling and probably scores Alaska a dedicated pax away from DL.

I love stories like these, but I also sort of ignore them a bit because:

1. I just have a hard time with an employee buying a customer's plane ticket rather than finding a way to help her internally. I think it was very generous and I get the whole "pay it forward" thing, but sometimes these things feel a little over-the-top.

2. I tend to discount the individual stories about companies because things happen everywhere all the time - good and bad. Being fortunate enough to have your company in the news positively is great, but I just see it for what it is - a nice story.

3. In this case, I'm tired of the DL/AS media frenzy.

Again, I think what she did sounds wonderful, and if it were me she was helping I'd have been very grateful, if a bit embarrassed. I just take it as a warm fuzzy story and move along.

-Dave

Norcal773 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:04 am

Something like this (ticket being cancelled because of a missed connection) happened to me at UA in Dec. Flight from Zurich was delayed that I missed my connection to SMF at IAD. There was a boarding pass for the next morning and a hotel vouched when we landed at IAD and I didn't eat it. I even got two emails from UA that night saying I had cleared upgrade on my next two flights.. To ORD and the to SMF. I show up at the gate the next morning and try to get a new boarding pass for the cleared upgrade and I was nowhere in the system. The rest of my flight apparently got cancelled when I didn't show up for my flight the previous evening because we were obviously delayed. All in all, it was a nightmare to get to SMF. This was the start of my many hiccups with UA, the last one happening last week where UA won't rebook me to France because one of the legs was on LH and pilots were on strike. They referred me to LH who weren't answering the phone. Yikes. Anyways, looks like I am jumping ship to DL.

tymnbalewne · Tue Mar 24, 2015 10:29 am

Quoting USAirALB (Reply 10):

That said, are there any rules the prohibit employees from doing this?

With my former airline an employee could not issue a ticket for themselves or for someone else with the employee paying for it. Another employee would have to issue the ticket.

max999 · Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:56 pm

Quoting PlanesNTrains (Reply 27):
2. I tend to discount the individual stories about companies because things happen everywhere all the time - good and bad. Being fortunate enough to have your company in the news positively is great, but I just see it for what it is - a nice story.

I agree with the sentiment here. I read stories all the time about a particular service staff member who is really nice or really nasty to some customer. They are all one off stories.

Unless I sense a general pattern where the staff who consistently go above and beyond or behave badly towards customers all the time, then I don't make much of it. I'm not going to change my opinion (for good or bad) about a company because of individual anecdotes.

tomcbaker · Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:43 pm

Quoting EA CO AS (Reply 3):
That’s when Thomas was told Judy was paying for her ticket to ensure she was going to get home, rather than be put on standby.

I read that too. However, I assumed the employee was referring to her voucher/guest pass and the taxes on that as what she was "paying" related to her ticket. It doesn't get much more descriptive than that.

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