Originally Posted by
robbert
Delta's network will attract many customers because of their network and good hard product. Not to mention a more generous domestic upgrade scheme than most of the competition.
They really dropped the ball on their loyalty program, but my guess is that a minority of fliers is motivated enough by that to switch. The FT crowd is almost by definition focused on rewards and I believe that causes a lot of the bias seen here (mine included). If you value a rich FF program, use awards ex-US, value EQM through BIS effort then the new DL is not for you.
Apart from that, the LCCs are still growing and will one day (AirAsia, RyanAir/AirLingus anyone?) start to compete on the last legacy hold-out of international travel. That will be the time for more downsizing.
OIC, so basically you just admitted that Delta's strength is certainly not it's award program.. so what is it then? The blue leather seats? I know for a fact that Delta has always been more expensive.. even with this new merger NWA/Delta tickets have risen and even United and AA tickets originating from Minneapolis (a NWA hub) are now cheaper. If this great product you are describing is their business class/crown room/credit card (American Express??), or something else.. then I got news for you.. those "elite services" I listed also involve a lot of frequent fliers which we agreed are somewhat screwed with the SkyMiles program.