Good day software engineers / developers. Hope your day has started on the right note. Today is Wednesday (hump day). Two more workdays and the weekend will be here.
I have read on different articles that airline traffic in the USA is back to pre COVID-19 pandemic levels. After reading the articles I felt good about the pandemic coming to an end and for the airlines and their employees. That said; I live in a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. MSP is an international airport and a hub for several airlines (including Delta). The airport is located next to Bloomington, MN. I used to own a software development company which was based in Bloomington. Every day on my way back home, depending on the wind direction, I could see two lines of six or more airplanes on final to land at MSP. In addition, the city in which I live is very close to a pattern used by planes to land on a third runway at MSP. Depending on the time and wind patterns, we could see several dozen planes around lunch time.
Today you can see a few planes if you spend an hour watching for them to land or after takeoff. By no means, the amount of traffic is close to pre COVID-19 pandemic levels. Being generous I would say that the traffic at MSP is about 10% of what is used to be a couple years ago when the pandemic started. So why are we seeing FAKE NEWS? Is there a presidential election coming up that I have missed? Of course not! In my opinion airlines are so desperate in getting people to vacation this summer, that they might have recruited writers and reporters to spread the need to take a vacation in the USA or better yet in Europe.
For reasons I do not wish to get into at this time, my wife and I decided on a weeklong vacation OUS this summer. We have done this before for the birthday of a good friend. We booked our tickets and hotel via Delta. A week or so we added our two granddaughters that wanted to meet my friend and family and just wanted to relax for a few days.
In the recent weeks we decided that the flights are good, but want to make changes to the accommodations to a different resort. The resort we are currently booked on has a one day policy for cancelation. In other words, you can cancel without penalty if you do so one day before you are scheduled to arrive. Nice!
I have tried to cancel the resort component of our trip using the Delta website. I have tried calling Delta Vacations (800.800.1504) on multiple occasions. A recording states that there are busy. After indicating to do a search on-line, the call disconnects. You cannot wait for an attendant. VERY POOR SERVICE CHOICE DELTA!!!
I have also called General Sales & Services (800.323.2323) on multiple occasions. As I am typing this post, I am holding for about two hours waiting for a representative. After half hour on-hold I hang up.
While waiting I found a different number for International Sales & Service (800.241.241). I will also give it a try. In addition I found on the Delta app on my iPhone Silver Medallion Reservations (800.325.6330) so I called. There was a two-hour wait. I left my phone number. I should be receiving a call from Delta within a couple hours. I placed my call at 13:27 CDT. Will let you know my findings after lunch. It seems that a couple family members from my wife will be joining us today.
We are done with lunch. We usually have lunch around 12:30 CDT, but today it was a couple hours later.
I have not received the call from Delta yet. Believe or not, having to wait for hours allows customers to continue searching the web and finding answers to most of their problems. I found what I needed on-line. I was able to cancel the resort reservations. My wife and I will book on a different resort tomorrow morning. We have stayed at this other resort a few times. The grounds are quite larger and the facilities seem to be newer. Continue reading “Can Construct – Tabulation”