DON'T FLY DELTA

Our trip to Ireland started out innocent enough. Just like any other flight.

MSP to JFK to SHANNON, IRELAND - 11 hours of total travel time...

Lucky enjoyed our first delay in Minneapolis, by handing out snacks to the other passengers on the airplane.

...but, after the 3rd delay, it wasn't so much fun anymore.
1st delay due to mechanical, 2nd weather, 3rd crew walk off.

We were stuck with extremely rude, unresponsive, and unhelpful DELTA AIRLINE gate agents. Already being at the airport for a total of 5 hours, 3 of which were spent on the runway, we had to go home, try and sleep, get up early and try it again on a reroute to Atlanta in the morning...

7 hours at the Atlanta airport entertaining a 3 year old...

We had lost our 1st class accommodations that we has spent the extra money on, but when the plane was delayed for the 2nd time in Atlanta... it sounds like a joke... wait for it... 5 Irish Priest walked off the airplane... to catch a connector to Amsterdam, we were able to get our 1st class seats back....

After being told countless times by several different Delta employees that the plane to Shannon depends on the plane from Atlanta and under no circumstances would not leave JFK without us... Arriving at JKF at 12:30 at night, the plane to Shannon was long gone. Mind you, we are traveling with a 3 year old and Mike's parents. They are going on 24 hours with no sleep. Mike stood in line for an hour and a half at the Interrupted Flight desk, only to be offered no help what so ever by an even more rude and unbelievable catty Delta staff...

They didn't care that we were traveling with 2 85 year olds and told us that they will have to sleep on the floor of the airport. I strolled our sleeping child up to see what all the commotion was about and the manager says, "Oh, if they have a child we must give them hotel vouchers, go ahead and go to the hotel, but there ain't gonna be any available rooms." I asked if they would let there mother sleep on the floor of a dirty airport.... No answer. At this point, tears were starting to flow out of pure frustration and exhaustion, the Delta staff then mocked and laughed at me....

The total brake down ensued only after these photos were snapped. Words were exchanged between us and them. They threatened to call the police if we didn't delete the pictures. "YES, please call the police" we said. "We have done nothing illegal and maybe they can give us a hand." They, then threatened to cancel our reservations.

CANCEL OUR RESERVATIONS....

Thanks to Mike's cousin Pauli, the flight attendant based out of New York and his worldly advice we were finally able to find a hotel on Queens Blvd in Queens, New York that had a couple open rooms. At 3am we had to put our 3 year old in a cab without a car seat. Our car seat was checked and the Delta staff would offer no help in retrieving it. We felt out of options.

It is a wonderful thing that my in-laws are as positive, patient and understanding people as they are. Looking at this as more of a life experience than a mere inconvenience. They really kept us calm. Lucky did very well, himself. He had plenty of things to keep him busy and suffered no melt downs. Hard to believe.

The ironic thing was that our hotel was only a block away from Ireland...

Our next scheduled flight was to Shannon, Ireland at 10pm the next day.

Things weren't looking good when another big storm cloud came rolling through. Anything like this can cause major delays at the JFK airport....

...but, all was good. The flight actually took off on time.

What should have been 11 hours of travel time with one stop took 65 hours and 2 stops. Frustrating to say the very least. We felt like there were other options avoiding NY all together. Delta's ticket and gate agents were extremely hard to deal with and not willing to help. I will say, that all of the flight attendants and one of the pilots were extremely pleasant, but we will do what ever we can to never fly with Delta again. I strongly urge you to think twice before booking a flight with them.