Originally Posted by
samonyc
Not only that, repainting planes is a lot less complex than merging two IT systems and rolling out a new website. It's not like they could have reassigned the painting crews to write business applications.
I choose to share the OP's optimism on the changes to delta.com. I did think that launching only a new homepage last month was premature and raised hopes needlessly, but it did simplify some of the more common tasks for average users. With the much improved SkyMiles Activity page, it looks like the promised incremental improvements are coming.
You're missing the point. I don't think anyone is suggesting that Delta should have assigned plane painters to website development (although the evidence is that they apparently have assigned the janitorial staff to IT strategy development and prioritization). The recommendation is that, given a fixed pot of money, Delta should have been spending less money on vanity items (painting the exterior of planes, which most of the traveling public don't pay attention to (they pay attention to the iNTERIOR of the aircraft, where they are sitting); designing pretty graphics for the website; and so on). Instead, they should have focused the fixed pot of money on substantive changes (phasing out BE 1.0/WBC more quickly in favor of the lie-flats; fixing functional flaws on the website; etc.)