Cheap Flights From Seattle, Washington To Tampa, Florida - No Deals

“Delta & the winter storm”

by priton on December 30, 2010

Flight from Seattle to Tampa

Airline:

Delta

RT/OW

Round Trip

Number of Stops:

1 stop in Atlanta, Georgia

Date of Flight:

December 2010

Seat Class:

economy

This started as an average flight for the winter holiday on Delta from Seattle to Tampa with a stop in Atlanta. The layover was about an hour and half with the gate for the flight from Atlanta to Tampa at the other end of the airport, so it was a long walk, but with plenty of time. Atlanta airport has some nice shops and places to sit and eat and/or drink. Arrived on-time, actually a few minutes early. The return trip occurred on Dec. 28th the day after all the flight cancellations due to the winter storm on east coast. We stayed at the Marriott that is at Tampa airport (very nice place connected to airport so it is very convenient) and we were not able to print boarding passes or to access the Delta website so went to Delta check-in and no one was there except 1 Delta employee who didn't know anything... so we printed boarding passes on the computer check-in for carry on bags and figured we could change it in the morning (we had bags to check)-at least we were checked in on a flight. We were not able to get any info about flights except what was on the TV news. Next morning, our flight was scheduled to depart 12:20 and we were a little concerned since Atlanta had been impacted by the delays and cancellations. Changing the boarding pass at Delta was good, they had extra staff there to help people get to the right place and to let folks know when their flight was cancelled (especially New York flights) and made other arrangements for them. The line moved quickly and there was no problem in changing our boarding passess at the electronic check-in. The flight was delayed by 30 minutes, and the connection in Atlanta had a 1 hour layover which was not reduced to about 30 minutes - remember the long trek across the airport? One flight attendant was rude and did not want to answer any questions, but the others were pleasant and 1 took extra time to talk to a woman who was very fretful about her connection in Atlanta. He took the time to explain how Delta would handle it if she missed the connection and he found the gate # and showed her a map of the airport. The in-flight service was good, of course you have to buy food with the exception of the peanuts/pretzels/cookies. So we arrive at Atlanta about half hour late and are told Delta staff will be available to help find connections or give info about cancelled/delayed flights. No one there. Look at the reader board and it says our flight is a couple gates down-Yeah! So when we get there, it says Indianapolis. We try to get info about which gate it has been changed to and unable to find anyone to answer question as the reader board still says the wrong gate and that the flight is on-time. Finally the ladies trying to get passengers to sign up for AmEx credit cards helped us and it turns out the flight is delayed by about an hour and will depart from this gate. All ended well, arrived home about hour and half later than scheduled.

Overall, it was a good experience. The weather is uncontrollable and it seems that Delta worked hard to get people on flights and to their destinations. Those conditions can make people a little grouchy, but for a couple of exceptions, the Delta folks did a good job. My only complaint was not having the info about our flight from Atlanta to Seattle more available. We didn't know if it was on-time and we were at the wrong gate, or was it delayed and we were at the right gate. The few rude employees were overshadowed by the considerate and helpful ones.

“Makes Families Uncomfortable”

by shalisat on June 2, 2010

Flight from Seattle to Tampa

Airline:

Delta

RT/OW

Round Trip

Number of Stops:

1 stop in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Date of Flight:

January 2010

Seat Class:

economy

We travel frequently with our children, and have never found anyone to be less accommodating than Delta in the service industry period. We usually pick our seats online when we book our tickets, which we did with this flight. Only we had our seats reassigned at check-in. We were flying with 1 lap child, 2 adults and a preschooler and they gave us 3 seats in 3 separate rows. We asked at the kiosk what to do as we couldn't have our 3 year old sitting by themselves. We've never had any problems over the years with seat reassignment. We've actually found most airlines to be quite accommodating to our family and try and arrange us to sit with an extra seat as we fly with a lap child. This time we were told nothing could be done till we got to the gate. So we asked the gate attendant, who then said we couldn't do anything once on board. So we asked the flight attendant, who then said we'd need to sit in our assigned seats till everyone had boarded. They didn't give us any notion that they would fix things, or give us hope that we would sit together. We didn't worry that we would be stuck with our 3 year old 6 rows in front of us, we figured someone would switch with us, but airlines are part service industry...and they did not serve us well here. We had to help ourselves. We told the people around us what our situation was and within 5 minutes or less we had new seating arrangements out of the kindess of other people. So, on check in as well as in flight service, I rate this flight poorly because if I was not an experienced traveller, I would have been quite worried on the outcome.

Now to be fair, our flights were very full. We notice this to be a trend. We assume airlines are trying to save money on empty seats and scheduling less flights. So, boarding the plane is a little chaotic and busy. The flight attendants wanted to get everyone situated and smoothly down the aisle.

BUT...our seats should not have been reassigned as they were in the first place, and more help should have been offered from the very beginning. No one from Delta even gave the peace of mind to us that things would be okay, they merely told us to ask elsewhere, there was nothing for them to do.