Gosh, don't get me started!
I started flying on a more-or-less regular basis in the mid 80's, right before deregulation started having its effiects. DL was a notch above the other airlines when the only way to compete was on service.
Some points:
- Extremely gracious F/As. Back then, it only took a couple of letters of complaint for them to be fired. The F/As were well paid and there would be hundreds of applicants for each open position. DL had the best of the best.
- Meals almost anytime. I remember reading in the Atlanta newspaper back then an article featuring the DL and EA kitchens - which were the largest food service operations in Georgia. Coach meals were similar to what is being served in F today and F was almost a party if your flight had a "RS" (domestic) or "M" (intl.) for meal service!
- Bending the rules for the customer. If anything went wrong, DL agents did what they could to make it right.
- Red Coats. Customer service agents that would roam around to take care of whatever the agents couldn't.
- Frequent Flyer awards you could use. Yes, it took 40K for a coach domestic ticket (but you got a minimum 1,000 miles), but even with capacity controls back then, you had no problem using awards.
- DBC vouchers that were worth something. If you volunteered for the bump, you would get a R/T ticket anywhere in the US with best available class. They made these more and more restrictive (R/T only in original class booked, booking only in a 3-day window and finally these DL dollars) as the years went on.
Of course, it was very rare if you ever found a flight for less than $500 (in 1980s dollars), so you were paying for the service.