Delta, Where Are My Bags?

As many of you know, I am in politics and travel frequently.  Often, plans are made, or changed, at the last minute and one can be on the road for longer than expected.  Last summer, I left home for what I thought was a 2 week trip and I ended up not returning home until almost 14 weeks later.  If I learned anything from that adventure, it was to pack well because I would rather be prepared than not.

Two weeks ago, I left home for at least a week, to head to the Iowa Caucuses.  When I left, I was not sure when I would be returning to Atlanta because there was a good possibility that I might head straight to New Hampshire for the primary.


The night before I was to return to Atlanta, I received a call to go to DC for an important meeting.  I changed my plans and headed to DC on Thursday, January 5th.  I attended my meeting and then booked my flight home for Friday afternoon, January 6th.  At that point, since everything I had changed, I planned to leave for NH today, Sunday, January 7th from Atlanta.  I was excited to spend a couple of days with my family and pups.


On Friday afternoon, I left DC on a 4:00 pm Delta flight to Atlanta.  When I arrived in Atlanta, my bags were nowhere to be found.  After waiting almost an hour, I went to the medallion baggage services office and filed a report of my baggage not arriving in Atlanta.

This has happened before and my bags have always been promptly delivered the following day.  This time, not only were my bags not delivered, I never heard a word from Delta until I contacted them.


Sometime on Saturday afternoon, I realized there was a real problem because Delta couldn't locate my bags and just about all of my business (and business casual) attire was in both of those bags. As Saturday evening pressed on, there was still no word that my bags had been located.  I was contacting Delta through Twitter at @Delta and @DeltaAssist.  I was also calling them on the phone.  Last night, the bags still had not been found and I was getting conflicting stories from Delta.


This morning, Delta still had not contacted me.  So I reached out to them and nothing had changed...the bags had not been located.  At this point, I obviously was not going to New Hampshire, but I still needed my bags.  The only thing I knew to do was to head to the airport.


My hope was that when I got to the airport, I would no longer be passed from employee to employee, but since I was there in the flesh, someone would realize why I desperately need my bags and work to find them.  I really hoped to find them in the Lost and Found at the airport. Unfortunately, the bags were not there and the Delta representative that I was sent to, was a horrible representative for the company and had no concern about my bags being lost.


Tonight, I am posting the email that I sent to Richard Anderson, the CEO of Delta Air Lines.  I also copied 5 other Vice Presidents and Directors.  As of right now, I have not received a written reply from any of them.


I am also including pictures of a bag that looks exactly like the two that were lost.  They are both large Samsonite bags and were stuffed to the gills.  The bags are a sugar brown color, with 360 degree spinning wheels.  They each weighed somewhere between 50-55 pounds.  Hopefully, the picture will help Delta locate my bags.


I know Delta has millions of customers, but as a Platinum Medallion member, I expect a little better customer service from Delta Air Lines.

The Bag

Please pardon any typos or grammar errors, as I typed this on my iPhone and was rather upset while composing the email.


Dear Mr. Anderson,
I am sitting in the medallion baggage claim office at the Atlanta airport.  Delta lost my bags on Friday evening, flight (#4006) from DCA to ATL and no one seems to care.

I am in politics and should be in NH right now for the primary, but I canceled my trip because all of my business attire, and essentially my life, is in these two bags.

I am a former Delta flight attendant and the way that this is being handled is not the Delta way and not the superior customer service I would expect from my home town airline.  I would expect a Delta employee to take ownership of this problem and work to help me find my bags.

It has been almost 48 hours and no one from Delta has reached out to me or called me, not even once. In hopes of getting the customer service I would expect from Delta, I leave my home on a Sunday afternoon, in the pouring down rain, to drive to the Atlanta airport.  My hope is that I will be treated as a valued customer instead of just a voice on the other end of the phone.  Not only do I not get better customer service, I get treated worse than I would have ever expected.

Immediately, when I walk into the Delta baggage office, the woman at the front desk tells me another woman sitting over at an individual desk will help me because she is busy logging into a computer.  The second woman, who eventually tells me her name is Ms. Wilson, doesn't even want to look at me.  She doesn't want to acknowledge me, let alone greet me.  Ms. Wilson is resting her chin in her hand while looking down and is either playing on a mobile phone in the far corner of the desk or taking a nap.  Whatever she was doing, she was attempting to hide behind the computer monitor while leaning against the wall.  I am completely dumbfounded at this treatment.  This is unbelievable that one of your best customers would receive this sort of treatment from an employee that works in the medallion baggage office.

When I asked Ms. Wilson about my bags, she told me that she has no record of the bags after they were put on the aircraft.  Yet, when I look at the status on my phone, it tells me that my bags reached carousel 3 in Atlanta on Friday evening at 5:52.  There is obviously a discrepancy somewhere, but she doesn't seem to care.  Her attitude is that she doesn't want to deal with me and will do everything she can not to get out of the chair.  She appears to be anchored to her seat and pulled as close to the computer monitor as possible so that I cannot see her name badge.

Ms. Wilson asked me what I wanted and I told her that I wanted someone in the company to take ownership of the problem and work to find my bags.  Her answer to that was, "We are. The company is taking ownership."  Yet, not one time, did she call me by my name or tell me that she would follow up on the bags and call me later this evening or any other time.  She didn't ask me to take a seat, offer a beverage or anything else the entire time I was in the office.

Ms. Wilson's attitude made it very clear that my lost bags were not her problem and she wanted me out of her office.  Even when I broke down into tears, she showed no concern or sympathy.  Judging from the treatment I received from Ms. Wilson, it is apparent that I am just another number in the Delta system.

Ms. Wilson claims that the company is taking ownership of the problem, but yet she is hesitant to give me her name and appears to be uncomfortable when calling baggage services at DCA at my request.  Just from listening to one end of the conversation, it was evident it was a strained conversation and she didn't want to give the employee at DCA her name, but would only say it was "Atlanta" calling.  She gave no description of the bags to the other agent and did not even let them know that the customer was sitting in the baggage office in Atlanta.  There was no concern or urgency in her call, but just a standard request to see if the bags were in DCA with these bag tag numbers.  After sitting in front of her during the call to DCA, I have a difficult time believing that anyone is taking ownership of my lost bags.

Upon leaving the medallion baggage office, my husband went to the office of the Atlanta Police department to see if they could pull the security tapes and see if the bags were stolen.  Instead of going with him, I stood right outside the baggage claim office to finish writing this email.  Within 5 minutes, Ms. Wilson walked out of the office laughing as she appeared to be going on break.  She did not even acknowledge me as she looked right at me.

While I am sure you have customers that spend a lot more (annually) on air travel than I do, I am still one of your best customers.  I could easily save myself money and fly AirTran or US Air, but my loyalty has been to Delta.  If my loyalty doesn't mean anything to Delta, then I will take my business elsewhere.

As I said, I am a former Delta flight attendant and I know how Delta has always held itself to a higher standard when it comes to customer service.  I guess the Delta family no longer prides itself on the customer service that the legacy carrier has been known for, or that C.E. Woolman once envisioned.

I am really disappointed, but hope that you or someone you appoint, will take ownership of this problem and find my bags.

Thank you for your time.  I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully, having my bags in my possession very soon.

Skymiles #: **********
Baggage Claim Number: DLATL*****

Thank you.



Best,
Amy Kremer
Chairman, TeaPartyExpress.org
770.***.****
678.***.****

Sent from my iPhone (Please excuse the brevity and any typos.)

By Order of the Court

Almost two years ago after kicking me out of the organization, Tea Party Patriots filed a lawsuit against me. After enduring litigation for numerous months, I am making a public statement about this legal proceeding with Tea Party Patriots because I am under a court order to do so. The purpose of this blog post is:

· To clear up any confusion and publicly state that I am currently the Chairman of Tea Party Express and am no longer affiliated with Tea Party Patriots and have not been associated with the organization since September 2009.

· To make it known that before litigation began in this lawsuit I tried to settle with Tea Party Patriots. They refused to settle and filed this lawsuit against me seeking financial damages.

· To make it known that I entered into a consent order with Tea Party Patriots in an effort to negotiate fairly and to keep litigation costs down, as the best interest of the movement has always been my number one focus.

· To make sure it is known that to the best of my knowledge, I am in compliance with the contempt order that has been filed against me. This includes giving administrative rights to the Tea Party Patriots Google Group to Jenny Beth Martin, Mark Meckler, and Debbie Dooley as well as to affirm that I am no longer a part of Tea Party Patriots.

· To let the tea party movement know that I am focused on sending true conservatives to Washington and that I believe in the movement. We have had a tremendous impact over the last few years and will continue to have a strong voice in the upcoming elections.

I hope that these statements help to clear up any confusion that there may be as to my current affiliation within the tea party movement.

You can see the motion for contempt here.

You can see the court order on contempt here.

You can see my bio here.

Taken Out of Context

Last Saturday, I did an interview with Fox News about the tea party movement. As a result of that interview, my comments have been twisted and turned to sound as if I am selling out to the GOP an supporting one candidate. There is nothing farther from the truth. I am sorry for the confusion over my comments, but they now have been taken totally out of context.

First and foremost, as I stated in the interview, for full disclosure, I was/am neutral and unbiased because of the TPX/CNN Presidential debate we are hosting in September. We have to remain neutral for the integrity of the debate. No presidential candidate has my support, or the support of Tea Party Express, at this time.

Last election cycle, Tea Party Express took on the establishment and worked hard to send true conservatives to Washington. We challenged the Republican party time and time again because we stood on principles and did not waiver. We were not willing to accept any RINO or Obama-lite. We were no longer going to accept what the Republican party was trying to shove down our throats, even supporting Doug Hoffman in the New York special against the liberal Republican. That will not change. No tea party group has taken on the Republican establishment more than we have. We are totally committed to tea party principles of smaller government, less taxes, an end to deficit spending and free markets.

In the interview, I stated, "Well, I think that whoever is the Republican nominee, they are going to have to have the support of the tea party movement, the entire tea party movement." This statement is reflective of my confidence in the strength of the tea party movement, which specifically means that I don't think a candidate can win the nomination without our support, much less won the general election.

My point was that the "cream will rise to the top," meaning that a true conservative will gain our support in the primaries and we will work together to defeat Obama. I believe in this movement and the people of this movement. I feel sure that once again, the tea party movement will work hard to send true conservatives to Washington, just like we did in 2010. I don’t believe a Republican can win without the strong support for the tea party movement. So when I say that we will support the nominee, I mean that we will support the nominee because he or she has won the nomination because of tea party support. I didn’t mean we will accept whatever is thrown our way.

In 2012, we have to defeat Barack Obama. This country will not survive another four years of his big government, socialist policies. Look at what has happened in only 2.5 years when Obama knows he has a reelection in 2012. Can you imagine another 4 years of him when there will be no reelection and has nothing to lose? He is the worst President that this country has ever had. We must remove him from the White House in 2012. We are now stuck with Kagan and Sotomayer. If Obama wins and appoints more justices, we will have no chance of turning back the march to socialism.

By the time that we have a nominee, I think the movement will have already spoken loud and clear and the nominee will have received the nomination with the support of the movement. If the nominee does not have the support of the movement, they cannot win the election. I have said that for months and months now and I firmly believe that.

Last election cycle, TPX was kicked and abused because we got involved in the primaries. We were told we needed to stay out of the primaries because engaging in campaign activity was the politically incorrect thing to do in the tea party movement. We jumped in anyway because we did not want to settle for the lesser of two evils in November. Tea Party Express will be doing the same after the presidential debate in September. We will be supporting the strongest and best constitutional conservative that emerges in the field.

While some may doubt the movement, I have full faith in the people across this country and know that we will have a significant impact in the primaries. We proved the strength and power of the movement in the primaries of 2010 and again in November of 2010. I think the same thing will happen again in the primaries of 2012 and again in November 2012.

The bottom line is this...you need to fight like a dog now in order to impact who the Republican nominee will be. The Tea Party Express national bus tour starts on August 20th and we have invited the candidates for president to give us their best shot on how to restore America to strength and prosperity. It culminates in the Tea Party presidential debate on September 12th in Tampa, Florida. I believe this process will start to unify the tea party around the strongest conservative candidates.

Tea Party Express has been the only tea party group that has put our money where our mouth is and supported true conservatives. I can promise you that will not change!

If you want to make a difference, then get involved in the primaries. That is the time to support the true conservative. What have you done to support your true conservative candidate today?

If you haven't seen the entire interview, you can watch it HERE.

A Movement Was Born

Wow! It is hard to believe that two years ago today, the modern tea party movement was born. As someone that was there from the beginning, I cannot help but to take a trip down memory lane.

The idea for a tea party actually was thrown out to the masses by Rick Santelli when he had this rant about the mortgage meltdown on CNBC.

The following day, after the video went viral, a group of conservatives on Twitter came together using the #tcot hashtag and had a conference call. I was on that call that Friday evening, February 20th, along with twenty-one other people. The purpose of the call was to plan for simultaneous tea parties across the country one week later. We defined our success by having 10 tea parties across the nation, with 50 - 100 people in attendance at each event.

We all got busy immediately planning our tea parties. One week later, on Friday, February 27th, at 12:00 noon EST, we had 53 tea parties with approximately 30,000 people in attendance! That was nothing short of amazing! All of those tea parties happened through social media and word of mouth, with no help from traditional media.

During that week, I worked with others to plan the first ever Atlanta Tea Party. On Friday at 12:00 noon, we had a spectacular tea party rally at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta.

It began raining right before the event started. The tea party lasted for an hour and as the time wore on, the rain poured down heavier and heavier. Yet, the bone chilling cold and rain did not deter people, instead they turned out in large numbers with umbrellas, rain gear and of course, their tea bags! In the end, we had 400 to 500 freedom loving Americans at the first ever Atlanta Tea Party in the pouring down rain! We even had local media cover the event and footage from the Atlanta Tea Party was shown on Greta's show, On the Record, that evening on Fox News Channel!

Here is a short video of the very first Atlanta Tea Party.

Beginning Friday afternoon after the simultaneous events and continuing through the weekend, the calls and emails poured in from coast to coast. It was obvious to those of us that had been on that conference call one week earlier that anger was brewing. History was made on February 27th, 2009 when a movement was born!

Much transpired in the weeks to follow and much is still to happen within this modern day grassroots movement. History is still being written. But just look at where we have come from since that cold February day in 2009. There is so much that we have done and it cannot all be told here. However, I can sum it up by saying we have completely changed the political landscape of Washington, DC.

This movement is still in an infancy stage and we are just getting started! Look at what we accomplished on November 2, 2010 with no plan or footprint of what we set out to do in those early days.

Now, imagine what we can do if we continue to educate ourselves on the issues and work to grow the movement. We can work smarter and be more successful if we will stick to the same core principles and values that have fueled us thus far:

• Fiscal Responsibility
• Constitutionally Limited Government
• Free Markets

Washington didn't know what to think of us 2 years ago and they still do not understand this movement. That is a good thing! Maybe they will work harder to do the right thing and rein in this debt. If not, we will work to retire them in round 2, coming November 2012.

We truly are in historic times and there is so much more to be told, but that will all come in due time. I just wanted to reminisce about the early days of the movement. Thanks for allowing me to walk down memory lane.

There are many people that played a role in the birth of this movement and you can read more about those key people here in this post by one of the Fathers of the movement, Eric Odom. Eric worked tirelessly in those early days, as did so many of us, and he gives tribute to those people in his Happy Birthday post to the movement. I hope you will take a few minutes and share in his recollection of those historic times.

Enjoy this day tea party friends and smile at all that we have accomplished because tomorrow, we need to get back to work!

Happy New Year!

Wow! It has been some time since I last posted. So much has happened in the past year and I have been very busy working to help send conservatives to Washington! November 2, 2010 was an amazing day and now we are off to new beginnings with a new Congress.

I will post most over the weekend to update friends and family on what has been going on in my world over the last year. Looking forward to reconnecting with all of you.

Happy New Year!

Massachusetts Miracle!

Brown wins! Brown wins! Brown wins!

Tonight is your night, the night of the people! The people have spoken. Washington, can you hear us now?

Harry Reid, you are next!

Uncle Sam, Keep Your Mitts Off My T**s!

Whether it is a mom, sister , daughter, grandmother, niece, or acquaintance, most of us, at some point in our lives, has been touched by breast cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women, except for skin cancers. The chance of developing invasive breast cancer at some time in a woman's life is a little less than 1 in 8 (12%).

Do you think that Mammograms should be used as political weapons? I don't think they should either, but as Politico writes, they are being used as political weapons.

I was shocked a couple of weeks ago to hear that a government committee issued a recommendation that it was unnecessary for women under 50 to screen for breast cancer. This recommendation came from the same government formed committee, that under the current legislation in the Senate, will be making such decisions in the future.

Is this what Americans want to happen with their personal health care? Should you have to discuss these personal and private decisions with a panel of individuals that may or may not be physicians? The bottom line is that Americans want to make a choice in their health care. They do not want the government involved in these personal choices and decisions. These decisions should remain between the Doctor and the Patient!

Linda Dorr of Laguna, CA is a breast care survivor and a tea party activist. This issue hits close to home with Linda and she is taking the initiative to head up a rally tomorrow in San Diego to tell "Uncle Sam, Keep Your Mitts Off My T*ts!" The event is already being written up on local websites and newspapers. Linda took drastic measures back in the summer when she chose to have a double masectomy. She talked about this with Cavuto on Fox News in July.

We are working with activists around the country to help raise awareness to this issue that has touched so many of our lives. It is time that we all say, "Uncle Sam, Keep Your Mitts Off My T*ts!" and my other body parts too! Over the next two weeks, and longer if necessary, people will be holding rallies across the country to send that exact message to Uncle Sam.

If you are interested in hosting one of these rallies or participating in one of these rallies, please contact us. You an also join the FaceBook group here.

Thank you for doing your part and standing up for women across this country!