Tag Archives for delta air lines.
Delta Air Lines is preparing to revamp their entire approach to business class. That means ‘choose your own adventure’ good, better, and best fare types as well as new bedding, meals and amenities – and a round of training for flight attendants to provide a more elevated service. This is all prompted by plunging net promoter scores for Delta One compared to pre-pandemic levels.
When computers handle the upgrades, there’s less opportunity for discretion, and as long as everyone is classified correctly on the list. But there are still plenty of cases where gate agents don’t follow the upgrade list.
A Delta Air Lines passenger flying economy from Paris to Boston placed their used meal tray on the ground in the aisle, so they could make tray table space to get work done. At least three people stepped in the partially-eaten trash on the way to the lavatory.
We sat and waited for operations to find us a new gate to return to. Once we were back and the aircraft doors were opened, a Delta red coat supervisor came on board. It was explained she’d need to come off the aircraft to discuss the situation. She gathered her belongings and got off the plane.
Plot twist: a few minutes later, the woman and her dog returned to the aircraft. She was being allowed to fly, after all.
She managed to get through security without a boarding pass (so TSA botched things first) and then boarded the aircraft without showing credentials to do so either. The flight was completely sold out, so no seats were available to her, but she reportedly hid in a lavatory for takeoff but eventually drew suspicion because she would leave “one lavatory and then just going into a different one…staying inside for a long time.”
A Delta Air Lines passenger complains that the person in front of them draped their jacket over their seat back. This took up the passenger’s space who was seated behind. It’s rude and it’s disruptive, but people do what makes them comfortable, blissfully unaware of the consequences their actions have on others.
Delta Air Lines doesn’t even upgrade their ‘secret’ 360 members very much anymore. Good luck if you’re a Diamond Medallion.
Going forward Artificial Intelligence and ‘personalized pricing’ that Delta says they are working on to present a specific price based on what they know about a customer will make sure they sell every seat – and not have to give out elite upgrades.
A long-time reader shared their experience flying Delta this past weekend from Dallas to Detroit. They’re a Diamond Medallion member, and they were flying on a paid first class ticket. When they boarded the narrowbody jet, they discovered that their seat had no tray table. It was missing, “so I can’t eat, drink or do work with my computer.”
Delta’s Investor Day was held this morning, and a key theme of airline President Glen Hauenstein’s presentation was getting passengers to pay more for their seats.
There were three ways he outlined that Delta is and plans to drive more revenue from passengers out of each seat that they fly – reducing upgrades, stripping down their Comfort+ and business class products to get customers to pay extra for the services than they’re used to, and using AI to figure out the most each passenger is willing to pay at the time they search for fares.
Delta Air Lines plans to offer Shake Shack cheeseburgers as a pre-order meal option in domestic first class. This will begin out of Boston on December 1, and expand to other markets “throughout 2025.”
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
