Don has an EGO to make up for all of his negatives

Worst airline in the f-ing world.

Worst aircraft and service. The seats are configured so badly you'd think you are in a womb. Impossible to get from one gate to the next in Detroit to the connecting flight to wherever because they have to "be on time" and haven't allowed enough time to transit across the vast airport terminal, even though we knew we were coming. Did they care? Nope didn't give a shit. At the time I was moving my 90 year old mother in a wheel chair. The seats and clearance around them were so small she had a hard time getting in and out, and she was not a fat person.

Delta is the devils airline.

I have flown Delta a lot. Often through DTW to Seoul and elsewhere. Never had a problem.
Once when a connecting flight was late, they were super on top of it..updates, gates, etc...

I will say the wifi in DTW could be better, not as bad as EWR or PHL, though.

I'm platinum for life on Air France, not that it ever got me many perks, but it does mean that Delta does not get to charge me for luggage in the States, even when I fly coach, which is usually.

Delta's business class sucks wind compared to Air France, but we have no control over which airline is flying a particular route. They do so much code-sharing that nowadays you can't even tell from the flight number what airline is actually flying the route if it's an intercontinental flight. Domestically, it's easy because Air France 9758 from Washington to Atlanta is obviously NOT going to be on an Air France plane.

When they get mechanical trouble, THAT'S when Delta falls apart. We once came in from Düsseldorf to Atlanta on the way to Charleston, South Carolina. Our scheduled plane from Atlanta to Charleston was cancelled, and the next one couldn't leave due to "bad weather" in Charleston. The airline doesn't have to compensate you or pay for a hotel if it's bad weather, but they DO have tp pay if their plane has mechanical trouble, because then it's their fault. My daughter had just flown in to Charleston from Frankfurt via Washington DC, and said the weather was sunny with no wind. I flashed my platinum card and asked for a supervisor. I told her I knew they were lying about the bad weather in Charleston because my daughter had just landed there fifteen minutes ago. She got us priority standby on the next flight, but warned us that first class was full. I told her, "It's a 35 minute flight, what the hell do we care about a free bag of pretzels. We've been on the road for 18 hours, and don't give a rat's ass where we sit, just GET US THERE!" They did.

first class seat. I figured out some time back that if I plan far enough ahead, I can get a first class seat at a price I'm willing to pay. Notice that I'm not saying it's the cheapest fare out there, just what I'm willing to pay.

One huge problem with flying in recent years (meaning any time after 9/11 and quite frankly for some time before that) is that passengers have been trained to go for the cheapest fare possible. Even if it means something like flying from Milwaukee to Chicago with a change in Atlanta.

Luckily for me, the rare times I've flown in recent years, I've been able to plan several months in advance, and so I book a first class seat. It's so nice. It also seems to automatically give me the pre-check thing, so I go through a shorter line and don't have to take off my shoes. I don't give a flying fuck that I might wind up sitting next to someone who paid a quarter of what I did but then got an upgrade. Big fucking deal. I'm happy to lock in my flight, first class, and not have to fret about a possible upgrade at the airport. Plus, since I've flown maybe four times in the past five years, I'm not going to get that upgrade.

And for what it's worth ,two years ago I flew Delta from Albuquerque to Ft Lauderdale, changing planes in Atlanta, again buying a first class seat, and had a great flight. Same on the return portion. My personal experience with Delta was quite nice.

I'm also a former airline employee, worked as a ticket agent at Washington National Airport from 1969 to 1979, meaning I started before any security stuff whatsoever, and so I know that the current version is simply security theater and totally meaningless.

We all yearn for the day that DCA will once again regain its rightful name of National Airport. Those of us who lived there decades ago will NEVER call it "Reagan." Reagan hated Washington, hated us. The feeling was mutual.

If someone calls in Reagan in front of my, I say, No, it's Washington National Airport.

I was an airline ticket agent at DCA from 1969 to 1979, so it wasn't very long after I left that Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, and I will NEVER forgive Lane Kirkland, then head of the AFL-CIO for going along with that firing. As far as I'm concerned, that was the watershed event that destroyed the unions.

When I worked at DCA, even though my employee group was not unionized, we got many benefits of the unions. For example, if we worked over 8 hours in a day, we got overtime pay. It didn't matter if the employee didn't go over 40 hours in the week (although trust me, if we went over 8 hours in one day we were definitely over 40 hours in the week). When we worked holidays, we got straight time for the day, and time and a half for the hours we worked that day. It almost, but not entirely, made up for never ever having an extra day off for the holiday. As I'll explain to people, for ten years I worked five days a week fifty weeks a year. I worked weekends and holidays and NEVER got an extra day off. Never.

It helped that we could trade shifts with each other, and that we flew essentially for free. And we were almost always boarded in first class. Which is in no small part why I book first class seats whenever I fly, if at all possible. Even though first class these days isn't all that terrific, and aside from the free alcohol and the occasional meal, is more like coach used to be, back in the day. Still, I'm willing to pay for it.

Someday, if I get fabulously wealthy, I'll fly private jets everywhere. Not that that will happen, but a girl can still dream, can't she?

Delta is my favorite Domestic carrier.

Maybe I have been lucky.

I said I didn’t want all that money and attention.