One of my worst reroutes

I’ve been at Delta for seven years, and I’m ready for Delta to be better for all of us.

One of my worst re-routes came on a scheduled turn from LGA to ORD and back.

Our outbound flight ran into a backup, and we were going to land in ORD 30 minutes late. Instead of simply waiting, they put another crew on our return flight and laid us over into our off day. We got the notification midway through our flight.

Instead of taking us direct back to LGA, they told us we would be needed to work a flight to ATL then deadhead back to LGA. We asked scheduling why they weren’t just sending us back to base. They told us that no one else was available and we were needed to work the flight to ATL. But in the system, there were five people on ADays in Chicago who could have worked the flight. Scheduling’s response? “We’re saving them.”

The issues were far from over. After almost a four-hour sit in ATL, scheduling switched it up again. Instead of deadheading back to LGA as planned, they switched us to a working flight to JFK, then ground deadhead back to LGA. We finally arrived at LGA more than 18 hours later than our original schedule.

A union contract stops most reroutes, and provides pay protections, transparency, and an order of assignment we can all follow. It will make Delta a lot smarter and more efficient for us and the operation overall. If the company has to pay us a premium like the pilots negotiated, they’ll do everything they can to avoid reroutes. And when we do get rerouted, we’ll have a clear set of rules so there’s a plan to recover, pay protect us, and get us home.

Join our campaign. Sign your card today, then sign up to become an activist and help us secure our future at Delta.

In Unity,

Steven, ATL
Delta Flight Attendant & AFA Activist