Today I received what I think was a love letter from Delta Airlines. In between the salutation and the valediction was this (and only this):

Your question require verbal communication, please contact our International Reservations department of France at +33 (0)892 702 609.

It took Delta two days to write that one sentence, so I know they labored over it and that I should examine it carefully. What they have written has all the hallmarks of deep felt emotion: there’s the lack of subject-verb agreement, which can happen when your heart is all aflutter. Then there’s their desire to have me connect with an agent in France. Since I’m not currently in France, nor will I be flying to France on the flight in question, I can only imagine that Delta wants to woo me with the language of amour. But the best part is that Delta wants to communicate something to me that can be said, but cannot be written. Since we will be communicating  over the phone, I assume both parties will be using words (at least I plan to), so I am desperately anxious to learn what words can be spoken but cannot be written. This secret should come in handy if I’m ever threatened by a stenographer. I’ll just say Delta’s magic words, and the stenographer will become apoplectic.

In case you’re curious, the entire problem should have been easy to fix. On 3 January, Delta emailed me saying that my flight in May had been changed. They invited me to choose my seats, so I tried to do that. That’s when I discovered that I was no longer assigned to the “Economy Comfort” seat I had paid extra for in July. So I contacted Delta. Their response started off nicely enough:

Thank you for your email to Delta Air Lines regarding Economy Comfort seat for your upcoming travel to Cincinnati. We apologize that due to schedule change you did not get re-accommodated in your originally purchased seat.

At this point, I expected the next paragraph to say something like “I have corrected our mistake….” It would have been awesome if they recognized that I had to spend some of my time essentially supervising them. Instead, I got this:

Please know that we will try our best to provide you with a similar seat up to departure. However, if we cannot accommodate you in an Economy Comfort seat at the time of departure, we will automatically refund any money you paid for this product.

Then the email ended. I wrote back asking for clarification. Does the phrase “up to departure” mean that they will assign me the kind of seat I paid for, but if I’m late, they’ll give it away? That would be understandable, but I’d need to be assigned to an Economy Comfort seat first before I could lose it. What I was concerned it really meant was: we’re going to try to find someone else who will pay more for that seat. If we can, we’ll give you your money back. If we can’t, you can have it. And that does not seem fair to me.

I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, can anyone explain why they began their response by thanking me for writing to Delta Air Lines? I mean, I know to whom I wrote, and even if I forgot, their email address (ContactUs.Delta@delta.com) serves as a helpful, if not redundant, reminder.