I’ve flown Delta quite a bit this year, including on Friday to Las Vegas. They’ve become the second largest carrier in Austin, behind Southwest (which has ~ 41% of the seats at the airport) with big plans to grow. Their quite nice Sky Club used to be sleepy, but was packed with barely an open seat on a peak travel afternoon.
There are a number of things about the experience, though, that struck me.
- Gate checked bag announcement. Prior to boarding agents announced that everyone in groups 7 and 8 would have to check their carry-on bags, so to please come up and do it before boarding begins. Delta has fewer large overhead bins than competitors, and hasn’t seemed in any hurry to change this.
- Wifi was often unusable throughout the flight. Delta wifi is free. They weren’t the first to offer this, but they were early. And while they delayed implementation to improve bandwidth, free means more passengers use the system and it just can’t handle what everyone on the plane is trying to do. Frequently during the flight the system would just bog down to the point that nothing would load. I’m one of the few people that’s not actually looking forward to American Airlines wifi being free next year. It seems like only Starlink can handle free, and I’d rather pay $17 than $0 but not be able to use the system.
- No gate on arrival, as prior aircraft delayed. Delta’s operation is better than it was in 2022, but it’s still not back to where it was pre-pandemic.
So much about the Delta experience seems on cruise control, or cut back. But they’ve been very good at marketing. Customers talk about upgrades ‘to middle seats’ (extra legroom coach has been internalized as an ‘upgrade’), even as Delta leads the way monetizing first class seats for as little as $26 to once a year flyers rather than offering them as a reward to $30,000 a year customers.
By the way I’m very happy with my Flying Blue Gold status (from Bilt Platinum) which doesn’t get me Comfort+ plus does get me exit row seating. I’ll gladly take an exit row aisle, or the infinite legroom window, over Comfort+ – that would be a downgrade.
Snacks have been cut back, with fewer passengers and offering the regular coach items in first rather than the Comfort+ basket. They don’t proactively offer earphones anymore.
I’m not a United fanboy by any stretch. And Delta’s domestic flight attendants are still friendlier and more proactive than United’s. But the Delta transatlantic fleet is half sad, with ancient seats that are the worst among U.S. carriers. And United’s domestic cabins with large screens, oversized bins, and soon Starlink wifi easily trump Delta.
When I express credulity over United’s claims to being a true premium airline, I have to temper that remembering that this is relative to Delta and Delta seems to be cutting back in many ways. Delta regulars frequently complain that Sky Clubs have seen cutbacks since the airline opened business class Delta One lounges (those Sky Clubs no longer need to serve as many Delta premium cabin passengers).
You used to give up frequent flyer program value to choose the Delta inflight experience and reliability, but as those erode why would you continue to do that? Why would you spend on a Delta Amex to boost status when status gets you less? And while United has consistently slashed value out of MileagePlus generally, the do seem to be trying to maintain value for elites and cobrand credit card customers with better saver award availability. MileagePlus is still far better than SkyMiles.
Scott Kirby may be right that there’s only room for two premium airlines in the United States, though he never really offers a warrant for the claim. But if he’s right, who’s to say that it’ll be United and Delta? Maybe it takes a decade of further decline, but it’s hardly a foregone conclusion that further decline won’t happen. I’m not confident that American will really step into that breach, of course.
It is a shame that American Airline sank to the bottom of airline ratings. How Parker and now Isom (and other US Air guys) were able to ruin a once great airline.
Cold-blooded, Gary. Cold-blooded.
@Tim Dunn — Dawg.
We offer earbuds now on every flight
I don’t need Scott Kirby to define the competition. But as anyone who has flown on DL, UA and AA can attest, there is certainly plenty of room for competition between them. Competition is a good thing! Let’s see more of a race to premium and less of a race to the bottom.
@Peter — “I like the cut of your jib.”
Delta’s meal service is horrible!!! Every single flight over seas is short ribs!!! I am so sick of short ribs but the second choice isn’t any better chicken thighs!!! Unfortunately, the service itself has gone downhill. They bring everything at once. KLM did a much better on their non stop service from San Diego to Amsterdam. However, their desserts are terrible!!! What happened to the cart service? Bring back homemade chocolate chip cookies mid flight. And stop let’s coach passengers use the first class lavatories. After all, we pay a
Premium to be in first class, we should not have to be competing with coach passengers to use the bathroom!!!
DL led the way with Basic Business. DL continues to find ways to innovative the ULCC experience within the airline. Others will most certainly (eventually) follow.
I happen to think Delta is the worst of the big 3. They are just as terrible as the other two, but somehow think they are great. Recently got bumped without compensation on a flight out of CVG. Had to buy a ticket on a different carrier walk up to get where I needed to go. The lady at Delta couldn’t care less and trolled me about it. The ticket was only $75 she said. Except I spend 30k+/year just not on you. My walk up on AA was $800 and made for a sleepless night.
Oh @Gary, what are you playing boke the bear with @Tim Dunn? It’s the Christmas season, leave the poor boy alone.
But, yes, Delta has been on cruise control and slowly losing altitude for years. Or, if you like a good conspiracy theory, they realized fast change yield swift pushback, while slow degradations in service or benefits seems to be tolerated better by the masses.
Delta lounges are a cut above UA ar the airports that matter to me (SFO and their hubs). They have fewer delays than UA (at least for those of us not flying thru ATL)
But when it comes down to it UA mileage plus’s is far superior to DL in every way. More saver awards for all types of seats, more TATL and TPAC biz, more last minute seats for 15k, a much better app for purchasing & maintenance.
Delta sells flights in first-class, like Oklahoma City to New York City-LGA, advertising a meal service but doesn’t cater a meal because they’re too cheap to sign a catering contract at certain out-stations. When you complain they don’t even offer 10,000 miles or whatever to make you go away. This is false advertising. How are customers supposed to know this in advance?
Delta has also reduced the snack basket on flights when they do cater. The snack basket itself when it is offered is small with fewer choices.
In the hub fortresses, the Sky Clubs now have paper cups instead of glassware for non-alcoholic drinks like soda (pop).
The average person who flies and doesn’t read or obsess over airline travel blogs/videos couldn’t tell you the difference between DL, UA, and AA. They’re all the same, but just some with bigger mouths and egos.
We all know that your entire existence is based on anecdotal experiences but you would have a whole lot more credibility if you backed up your statements with actual statistics rather than extrapolating out what you experienced as if it is the basis of reality.
Delta clearly has far better automation to be able to predict the number of bags that are going into the overhead bin. I haven’t been on a Delta flight in years where the gate agent made an announcement that gate bags would need to be checked only to find open overhead bins at departure, which regularly happens on both AA and UA.
The number of people in each boarding group changes w/ every flight so it is very possible that a flight with a higher percentage of higher fare paying passengers will run out of overhead bin space.
Do tell us, Gary, how full were the overhead bins when the flight departed?
And while you are at it, tell us the percentage of AA, DL and UA’s mainline fleets that have large overhead bins.
and while you are at it, tell us the percentage of AA, DL and UA’s flights that are operated by regional jets including Canadair models. DL has the highest percentage of mainline operated flights which means that there is a much higher percentage of passengers that can get standard rollerboards onboard which are limited even on Ejets.
I was just on 4 DL flights this week and the usual 3 or 4 snacks were offered.
DL has free high speed WiFi on more aircraft than any other airline in the world. In the past 2 months, I have been on DL aircraft w/ free WiFI over the Atlantic and also on RJs. No other US airline comes close to having the number of aircraft with free high speed WiFi.
as for DL’s TATL fleet, it is composed of 40 A330-900s which have Delta One Suites; the TPAC fleet is almost entirely A350s which have Delta One Suites.
The incessant and childish focus on the 767-300ER fleet belies the actual facts that DL operated only about 15 767-300ER flights/day over the Atlantic this past summer; half of those competed against UA 757s which do not even have direct aisle access.
DL, like AA, is beginning work on installing new cabins on its older aircraft – the 330CEOs for DL and the 77s for AA. UA has announced no plans to renovate cabins on any of its older aircraft and also has announced no plans to retire any widebodies.
You hurt your credibility when you make broad brush statements based on anecdotes and even more so when you base them on factually incorrect observations.
Do better, Gary.
I love it. He thinks he anecdotes are data and others’ are anecdotal. Complete lack of self-awareness, but it’s funny.
Ed Bastian’s focus on Amex over Delta is showing on the operational line. Tim Dunn is free to claim otherwise but their record on my transpacific trips via DTW on A350’s is abysmal. Only 25% operated on time, 25% had > 2 hr mechanical delay and 50% cancelled.
And as noted by Gary, the C+ service has reverted to same as economy. Interestingly the economy service has remained the same. It’s only those that dare to spend for flying frequently that experience the downgrade in service.
Not speaking specifically about Delta, but the big three in general, I’ve seen a cycle of quality over my 40 years of flying. An airline ups it’s game to increase traffic, but after it has achieved its goal it bumps up its prices and down its costs (quality) to harvest the value created earlier. Passengers fall away and the airline restarts the cycle by improving once again. The goal of most publically traded US corporations is to increase sharholder value and leadership salary and bonuses. It makes sense to me to avoid becoming too attached to any one US airline.
@ Gary — “MileagePlus is still far better than SkyMiles.” This depends on your status. For mid-status flyers, this is true. For top-tier fliers, Delta is better than United. Delta GUCs and RUCs are light-years better than UA’s pathetic PlusPoints.
Tyrone,
again, YOUR personal anecdotes mean nothing for an airline that operates thousands of flights per day. and JL isn’t smart enough to recognize that I am not making my anecdotes data; I am just noting that my anecdotes don’t line up w/ others’ anecdotes – which highlights that anecdotes mean nothing either way.
even with your narrow DTW-Asia focus, it is not hard to look up the data but DL has nowhere near 25% operational reliability.
and I have been in the DTW airport enough to watch DL’s Asia flights leave on-time even though I know there are delays and, yes, cancellations.
The sooner you AND GARY realizes that your or anyone else’s anecdotes mean nothing in an industry that carries 1 billion passengers in the US every year, the sooner we can come up w/ accurate statements.
And UA is nowhere near close to even 10% of its flights w/ free high speed WiFi, none of which are transoceanic flights and most of the ones that do have it are regional jets.
AA will easily jump to the 2nd largest carrier w/ free high speed WiFi when they turn it on in next year – and yet it is UA that endlessly talks about its free WiFi and its seatback screens – even though a much smaller percentage of UA’s fleet has seatback video than DL or certainly B6.
It is all about accuracy
I cannot agree with you more on this, Gary. The food in Delta One are variants of the same dishes you’d get domestically now, much of the fleet is aging, the lounges are jampacked, the “fast, free wifi ” is terrible, the list goes on.
Delta has even removed salads and fruit from domestic meals as side dishes.
Everything that made Delta better, especially pre-pandemic, they seem to be lagging behind now.
“Do better, Gary.” Shots fired! Weewooweewoo!
WHINE WHINE WHINE. Boo freaking hoo. The WiFi is a deferrable MEL item. Sometimes it doesn’t work and can be deferred repair until the jet returns to a Delta maintenance base or an airport that has people that can reset it. Starlink is a great idea but…it takes time to have the item approved for EACH AIRLINE to use and will require downtime at a major maintenance base for it to be installed. That goes for interiors etc. Like most other airlines, if a item is deferred and depending on the allowable deferral time, the airline might schedule that aircraft to fly additional short or long trips to “run out” time so that additional maintenance can be done all at the same time. Quit whining about nothing.
Tim Dunn says, “your entire existence is based on anecdotal experiences but you would have a whole lot more credibility if you backed up your statements with actual statistics rather than extrapolating out what you experienced as if it is the basis of reality. You hurt your credibility when you make broad brush statements based on anecdotes”
Then Tim Dunn says, “I haven’t been on a Delta flight in years where the gate agent made an announcement that gate bags would need to be checked only to find open overhead bins at departure
I have been in the DTW airport enough to watch DL’s Asia flights leave on-time
I was just on 4 DL flights this week and the usual 3 or 4 snacks were offered.”