Let’s see:
1.) With Atled, don’t buy tickets with code share. If it is AirItalia, then try to buy ticket though agents/websites that specializes travel to Italy. Think about how OFTEN Atled sells tickets below on their “partner” airlines flights?

2.) The guy at the counter is not helpful. Do not lose your cool. The cooler you are, the more frustrated they will be. The worst case is that they will have to refer you to a manager or you will. You want to tie up as much resources as possible. The none Northwest agents are not union, so you could, in theory make the guy look bad to his or her manager assume you are cool and in control, by the way: Don’t ask for name directly. Instead, take out your phone and take a pic the guy. Once you are done then walk to another Atled employee, to ask for his or her name through social engineering.

3.) Assume you do have time…Why worry about being late for the flight. At the end of the day every airline is measure with on-time departure. For international flight, they will most likely wait longer to get people on the plane. In this case AirItalia will hate you but you just has to make a case to point finger at “Atled”. Of course, you will do this to real “Atled” flights if they do not care to be on time.

Atled does not know what they are doing. The bigger doesn’t make it better. As I am on hold with changing a ticket, my call is routed from MSP to South Africa, India, East Europe, MSP… on and on. Being told the wait is well over 1 hour in fact it is only 20 mins. Do not blame their agents, it is the management. Send message to their Cs.

You were 5 minutes late. The MINIMUM recommeded time for arriving at the airport for an international flight is 2 HOURS. That’s minimum – meaning it’s better to arrive earlier.

Sounds like you were ill prepared. There’s no excuse for the agent being rude, but at busy airports like JFK there are very specific time slots for planes taking off/landing that are dictated by the FAA down to the very minute. They often CANNOT hold a flight for an extra 2-3 minutes or else they could risk their take-off time by 20-30 minutes. Even small airports have this issue when flights are going into large ones like Atlanta.

The gate agents don’t have time to explain all of this ins and outs of why things work they way they do. If they took the time to explain, EVERYONE would be late.

RULE OF THUMB: Always get to the airport WELL BEFORE recommended minimum times.

Exactly the reason that I refuse to fly Delta. Fortunately, most of my families flights travel between Atlanta, Charlotte and Houston.

I was highly amused when a Delta employee started yelling at me when I convinced somebody who was about to buy tickets from Delta into going to the AirTran area and buying tickets from them.

After so many bad experiences with one airline and NO bad experiences from any other airline, I have to try and help out others.
I’m not saying that I haven’t had delays and other things happen with other airlines, but THEIR representatives handled the situations PROFESSIONALLY. Delta must have two requirements for their employees….. low IQ scores and no customer service skills.

People, if you take the time to get your stuff in order and ready to check in, you would not have to go through all these frustrating situations, bottom line