I won’t go into all the details but everyone I know who flew in to Austin for SXSW had many many problems. Mostly for my own record, here’s what I answered in the after flight survey. (They send a survey to people who might be affected by overbooked flights)
The only hint I had that I was in an overbooked situation was that I couldn’t select a seat in the checkin process (online, on the phone, in the iPhone app (the app is missing loads of errors btw and giving incomplete feedback).
I called Delta the night before and the person said I DID have a seat even though she couldn’t tell me which seat.
The next day I went to the desk four times and EVERY time the person told me I was good and HAD a seat.
Only in the end (5 minutes before boarding ending) did he call me to assign me a seat he had just secured by someone accepting a voucher.
This is a horrible way of dealing with overbooked flights, it’s deceitful and stressful for the clients.
I know of 8-10 other people flying to Austin for SXSW from Montréal and EVERY person without exception had to deal with issues / cancellation / delays / flying to another city / crews being changed, etc. (I’m only counting YUL but the situation was also wide spread from other cities.)
EVERY person has sworn off flying again with with your company.
Congratulations, your cost cutting habits of overselling and shit attitude from personnel has cost you clients.