RealDLInsider - I'm Still Here
Sep 14, 2007, 3:45 pm
#1
Company Representative - Delta Air Lines
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 34
RealDLInsider - I'm Still Here
Hope everyone is doing well and the work week wasn’t a killer! I saw a couple postings and was just waiting for someone to take note that I was quiet. I have been gone a little while, but just returned earlier this week from a two week cruise to the Mediterranean. Visited Italy, Greece, Croatia, France and Spain, and I think I still love Italy the best. There is nothing like the Venice waterways, Rome’s history (although Athens is nice), Florence’s shopping and the spectacular Amalfi Coast down by Sorrento. Absolutely amazing! Needless to say – I’m still relaxed! So let’s see on updates – where do I start …
Yes. I’m sure you did see that we increased some of the administrative service charges on revenue and award tickets, generally from $50 to $75 per ticket, and we did raise the ticketing charge for calls made to Reservations from $10 to $20. Legally, my hands are tied with respect to talking too much about why we did this, but if not apparent, these new fees are still in-line with the competition. While this did occur, we are also investing heavily in delta.com and will continue to upgrade the technology, which should make avoiding some of these fees even easier over time. For our Platinum Medallions, we continue to waive all the award ticketing fees and the same day confirmed standby fees (which many of you know includes Gold Medallions).
Speaking of delta.com, I saw a posting today that someone was asking about the award calendar and some of the improvements. We continue to add technology upgrades around the award calendar, and we do now display a full two month award calendar with specific pricing per segment. On top of this, by the end of October, NW, CO and AF award seats will be added to the delta.com award calendar, which will give customers access to 95%+ of all award seats available. It’s really a part of our strategy to continue to bring the decision making to the customer. Much more to come on this over the next 6-9 months. Also, don’t be surprised if you see a couple of my colleagues out here – Josh Weiss is the head of delta.com and Cheryl Scheck manages our SkyMiles strategy and technology team. Both of them are heavily involved in a lot of the technology projects around here in both areas, they read these postings often, and will continue to respond to them.
Siteseer seems to be going very well and better than any of us expected. The teams are going into the last leg, and I have to admit I really like the Waterfalls. I said this before – but I love Dubai! Since watching the Waterfalls’ original trial video a few months back, they always just seemed like people I’d love to travel with. The Lev brothers are also great, but the Waterfalls sort of remind me of my parents when I was younger!
On to Food … Admittingly, I’m probably one of the most excited people out there to have food back onboard. Although there is a cost to it in the back of the aircraft, there are now more options and the quality actually looks pretty good. I’m bragging on the product team a bit over here at our HDQ, but I think they did a great job of coming up with some diverse selections that will satisfy many of our customers. I’m also loving some of the improvements for our First Class customers. More choices, better quality and the sundaes, should all be welcoming additions.
By the way, I appreciate all the feedback around the profitability discussion and heck no, it won’t scare me away. Direct feedback and honesty is exactly what I want. I then know what I’m getting into when I change or “enhance” something. No comments on the “enhance” by the way. In fact, if you see a letter, email or memo with my signature on it that uses the word “enhance,” I’ll kill myself. I also HATE that word!
About it this time around, but more to come this Fall. Most of us are back in the office and working away after the Summer vacation period, so we’ll get back to work trying to continue to move Delta in the right direction.
Enjoy the weekend!
Jeff
Yes. I’m sure you did see that we increased some of the administrative service charges on revenue and award tickets, generally from $50 to $75 per ticket, and we did raise the ticketing charge for calls made to Reservations from $10 to $20. Legally, my hands are tied with respect to talking too much about why we did this, but if not apparent, these new fees are still in-line with the competition. While this did occur, we are also investing heavily in delta.com and will continue to upgrade the technology, which should make avoiding some of these fees even easier over time. For our Platinum Medallions, we continue to waive all the award ticketing fees and the same day confirmed standby fees (which many of you know includes Gold Medallions).
Speaking of delta.com, I saw a posting today that someone was asking about the award calendar and some of the improvements. We continue to add technology upgrades around the award calendar, and we do now display a full two month award calendar with specific pricing per segment. On top of this, by the end of October, NW, CO and AF award seats will be added to the delta.com award calendar, which will give customers access to 95%+ of all award seats available. It’s really a part of our strategy to continue to bring the decision making to the customer. Much more to come on this over the next 6-9 months. Also, don’t be surprised if you see a couple of my colleagues out here – Josh Weiss is the head of delta.com and Cheryl Scheck manages our SkyMiles strategy and technology team. Both of them are heavily involved in a lot of the technology projects around here in both areas, they read these postings often, and will continue to respond to them.
Siteseer seems to be going very well and better than any of us expected. The teams are going into the last leg, and I have to admit I really like the Waterfalls. I said this before – but I love Dubai! Since watching the Waterfalls’ original trial video a few months back, they always just seemed like people I’d love to travel with. The Lev brothers are also great, but the Waterfalls sort of remind me of my parents when I was younger!
On to Food … Admittingly, I’m probably one of the most excited people out there to have food back onboard. Although there is a cost to it in the back of the aircraft, there are now more options and the quality actually looks pretty good. I’m bragging on the product team a bit over here at our HDQ, but I think they did a great job of coming up with some diverse selections that will satisfy many of our customers. I’m also loving some of the improvements for our First Class customers. More choices, better quality and the sundaes, should all be welcoming additions.
By the way, I appreciate all the feedback around the profitability discussion and heck no, it won’t scare me away. Direct feedback and honesty is exactly what I want. I then know what I’m getting into when I change or “enhance” something. No comments on the “enhance” by the way. In fact, if you see a letter, email or memo with my signature on it that uses the word “enhance,” I’ll kill myself. I also HATE that word!
About it this time around, but more to come this Fall. Most of us are back in the office and working away after the Summer vacation period, so we’ll get back to work trying to continue to move Delta in the right direction.
Enjoy the weekend!
Jeff
Sep 14, 2007, 3:50 pm
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Nice to see you again Jeff - sounds like you're having quite the good summer travelling - the French open, back to Europe on a cruise. You're making me jealous 
Sep 14, 2007, 3:52 pm
#3
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Sep 14, 2007, 3:58 pm
#4
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: WI/FL
Programs: Delta Diamond, AMEX Centurion, SkyClub
Posts: 377
Can someone please tell Josh Weiss that it's a major pain to call in and ask a representative to "clean-up" itineraries with schedule changes --- we should be able to do that online --- also a pain when you have to re-select seats most of the time. The call to Delta generally takes less than 30 seconds of communication time ---- but being on hold has to be costly to Delta for something that could be done online.
In some cases it's simply way to difficult to determine what the actual new flight times are!
Anyone else have this issue?
And why skip Malta Jeff?
Sep 14, 2007, 3:58 pm
#5
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Somewhere today, somewhere tomorrow!
Programs: Delta DM
Posts: 6,768
Glad to hear you had a great cruise, will have to look into that for future vacations. And thank you for the updates.
Sep 14, 2007, 4:39 pm
#6
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Wayne, PA USA
Programs: DL MM, Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium, HHonors Gold
Posts: 7,242
Sounds like you had a good time. Welcome back!
Sep 14, 2007, 4:52 pm
#7
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: SEA - DL DM/2MM, *A Gold, SPG Lifetime Plat, some other car and hotel stuff
Posts: 5,649
...we did raise the ticketing charge for calls made to Reservations from $10 to $20... While this did occur, we are also investing heavily in delta.com and will continue to upgrade the technology, which should make avoiding some of these fees even easier over time. For our Platinum Medallions, we continue to waive all the award ticketing fees and the same day confirmed standby fees (which many of you know includes Gold Medallions)...
I take exception with charging the $20 direct ticketing fee when there is no alternative. This is really unfair. The fee is supposed to be a "stick" to get us to do our business online. In cases where it is impossible to complete your needs online, the fee should not hold.
I recently discussed this with SMS. Ultimately, my fee was waived because of erroneous information and terrible service provided by an offshore IT help desk. I was trying to book a Madagascar award, which necessitates the use of AF, which can't be booked online (I understand this will change someday, but I am more worried about today). When I finally had a SMS supervisor back on the line, I suggested that it is misleading to say that the destination is 120k miles in award business. The $20 per ticket is mandatory since there is no other way to ticket but to incur the fee, so you ought to spell that out on the award charts!
Really, Jeff, I don't object to the fee, but don't charge it when phone help is unavoidable.
Sep 14, 2007, 5:05 pm
#8
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Kea'au, Hawaii
Programs: Recovering Delta SkyMiles Addict--Now Gold with AAdvantage
Posts: 586
SWEET!
Can someone please tell Josh Weiss that it's a major pain to call in and ask a representative to "clean-up" itineraries with schedule changes --- we should be able to do that online --- also a pain when you have to re-select seats most of the time. The call to Delta generally takes less than 30 seconds of communication time ---- but being on hold has to be costly to Delta for something that could be done online.
In some cases it's simply way to difficult to determine what the actual new flight times are!
Anyone else have this issue?
Can someone please tell Josh Weiss that it's a major pain to call in and ask a representative to "clean-up" itineraries with schedule changes --- we should be able to do that online --- also a pain when you have to re-select seats most of the time. The call to Delta generally takes less than 30 seconds of communication time ---- but being on hold has to be costly to Delta for something that could be done online.
In some cases it's simply way to difficult to determine what the actual new flight times are!
Anyone else have this issue?
Sep 14, 2007, 5:07 pm
#9
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Atlanta/DC
Posts: 297
SWEET!
Can someone please tell Josh Weiss that it's a major pain to call in and ask a representative to "clean-up" itineraries with schedule changes --- we should be able to do that online --- also a pain when you have to re-select seats most of the time. The call to Delta generally takes less than 30 seconds of communication time ---- but being on hold has to be costly to Delta for something that could be done online.
In some cases it's simply way to difficult to determine what the actual new flight times are!
Anyone else have this issue?
And why skip Malta Jeff?
Can someone please tell Josh Weiss that it's a major pain to call in and ask a representative to "clean-up" itineraries with schedule changes --- we should be able to do that online --- also a pain when you have to re-select seats most of the time. The call to Delta generally takes less than 30 seconds of communication time ---- but being on hold has to be costly to Delta for something that could be done online.
In some cases it's simply way to difficult to determine what the actual new flight times are!
Anyone else have this issue?
And why skip Malta Jeff?
Sep 14, 2007, 5:08 pm
#10
Join Date: Sep 2007
Programs: DL DM
Posts: 241
delta.com
.....
Last edited by underattack; Oct 20, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Sep 14, 2007, 5:12 pm
#11
Join Date: Nov 2004
Programs: Marriott Platinum Delta Platinum AA Platinum
Posts: 578
Welcome back Jeff...good to see your postings on Friday afternoons.
Sep 14, 2007, 5:31 pm
#12
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 408
RealDLinsider comments
May I refer you to the Thread titled "New Bonus Opportunity"Your comment"Siteseer is going well and may be better than you at Delta expected" For many of us its just another mismanaged Delta promotion!!.and certainly is not going "well" WHY IS ALWAYS WE WHO HAVE TO PROVE TO YOU THAT WE PARTICIPATED,SIGNED UP CORRECTLY,MET ALL OF THE T & C REQUIREMENTS,CONSTANTLY HAVING TO SEND IN SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION ETC>ETC>ETC.CAN'T for once you and those HOTSHOT marketing people get it RIGHT.
Sep 14, 2007, 5:53 pm
#13
Suspended
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Good to hear about the upcoming partner award availability online. KL flights would be nice as well.
Sep 14, 2007, 6:02 pm
#14
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2000
Programs: DL FO, Marriott Gold, SPG Gold
Posts: 12,003
Hi Jeff,
Not to sound just a tiny bit sycophantic, but welcome back from your "personal life".
Will we be able to see international award availability for CO & NW? I was under the impression it was going to be just domestic.
Also you need to address the issue of vouchers being used by people other than who they were issued to. There has been some discussion related to this problem on the board lately. DL might be getting scammed. @:-)
Not to sound just a tiny bit sycophantic, but welcome back from your "personal life".
Will we be able to see international award availability for CO & NW? I was under the impression it was going to be just domestic.
Also you need to address the issue of vouchers being used by people other than who they were issued to. There has been some discussion related to this problem on the board lately. DL might be getting scammed. @:-)
Sep 14, 2007, 6:19 pm
#15
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 408
RealDLinsider comments
You might also Checkout this thread "Delta Siteseer Contest"win 1 Million Miles,get upto 2000 miles for voting.