Delta is the worst.

If you can avoid flying Delta Airlines in the near future, I highly recommend doing so. Delta merged with Northwest over the summer, but instead of cutting the dregs of the company they seemed to have promoted the most incompetent, useless employees. This is doubly true for JFK employees.

A few highlights from my recent trip:

1. Delta has a policy of only allowing one checked bag per flight if you want to avoid paying extra bag fees. One exception to the rule is ski and boot bags count as one bag (as long as they are under 50 lbs combined), as mentioned here. Unfortunately, the employees at JFK didn't get this memo, so explaining that I shouldn't be charged an extra fee was completely mind boggling to them. The scene was roughly equivalent to a surgeon explaining open heart surgery to a non-doctor. Eventually they were going to charge me and give me a $50 coupon towards my next flight on Delta. This wasn't going to work since I plan on never again flying the airline. Finally, after what must have been 20 minutes, they figured out how to print two bag tags while not charging my credit card. Miracles do happen.

2. On the return flight, I was fortunate enough to have satellite TV at my fingertips. ESPN, NBC, TBS, FX etc on the personal TV directly in front of me. Unfortunately, the feed cut out so many times during the flight, it really wasn't worth my time.

3. Upon arrival back to JFK, our connecting flight from Salt Lake City was relegated to the dingiest, hottest, most ill-smelling baggage claim known to man. I can't stress how high Delta cranked the thermostat. There were only two carousels--one for our flight and one from Atlanta, which apparently landed about 45 minutes before our flight touched down. Without fail, the baggage handlers put all of the Salt Lake City luggage on the carousel for the Atlanta flight. I thought the people on the Atlanta flight were going to start a riot since our flights bags started coming out first and they had been waiting at least 45 minutes for their luggage. At one point, the bags became jammed, and instead of waiting for an attendant to fix them, an Atlanta passenger jumped on top of the carousel and fixed the bags himself. Surely a nice enough gesture, but probably not the smartest move. The attendant immediately slammed on the emergency stop and the rest of the SLC and ATL passengers had to wait another three minutes for the carousel to start back up again. At this point, all I could do was laugh at Delta's ineptitude and take in the circus. Our bags eventually arrived, but not after I thought some Atlanta passengers would try to steal other bags just to leave the Delta terminal as fast as possible. So add Delta to the growing list of airlines I will never fly again.