Tim Mapes (TM) is Senior Vice-President of Marketing. He has been at Delta for 19 years; prior to that, he was at the ad agency who developed the campaign "We Love to Fly and It Shows". He was arguably the most dynamic speaker during the afternoon, meaning no disrespect to the other Delta executives who presented, all of whom were outstanding.

1. TM started out by saying how much he enjoyed the threads on fake cheese.

2. TM made the statement that, before Richard Anderson, on board performances by DL crew "were not worthy of the name Delta". According to TM, in today's company, "no place to hide" if an employee is not committed to improving the company.

3. TM stated that the integration of DL and NWA were at the expense of innovation.

4. TM stated that DL is spending $280 million to install new flat bed seat modules on A330s [as an aside, people at Tech Ops told us that it is costing around $9 million per aircraft to acquire and install the new BE seat modules|

5. TM views flat bed conversion on INTL flights as very important; DL has just authorized an expenditure to covert the seats on the 747-400s to lie flat modules; seats will be installed so that all have direct aisle access; in other words, no "stepovers" will be necessary. He estimates the conversion on the 747-400 fleet to be finished by late 2013/early 2014.

6. TM quipped that there is nothing wrong with JFK that a well placed stinger missle couldn't cure; he emphasized that DL management understands the problems with JFK and is trying to cure them as quickly as possible.

7. With respect to the SkyClubs, TM noted that an average of $2 million per year for the past ten years had been invested in the clubs (there are 52 clubs systemwide). This year alone, DL is investing $25 million in the existing Sky Clubs, and that they are not even close to done investing in them.

8. DL is having a meeting very soon with AF, KLM and Alitalia in Barcelona to talk about various issues relating to lounges, to try to make the experience as seamless as possible.

9. The biggest news to come out of this presentation is that TM announced that Gold Medallions can now get into AF and KL lounges at CDG and AMS.

10. Remember the Delta Wings that they used to hand out to the kids? TM announced that the pilots will be handing them out before and after flights; while playing cards won't be returning, pilots will also be handing out souvenir cards with a picture of the aircraft type being flown and data on the back about the plane.

11. 15 cities were considered for a "SkyClub Lite"; one will be selected as a prototype, but TM wouldn't say which city that will be in.

12. With respect to clubs that will be reopened, TM indicated that PHX is at the top of the list, with DEN second, but that the priority right now is to fix the existing SCs and make them better.

13. Having said the foregoing, TM then noted that DL will be building a new SC in ATL Concourse D to service the RJ flights out of that concourse. It wasn't clear in my notes when this would be completed.

14. TM observed that, prior to Richard Anderson, DL was in the "harvest mindset"; DL's goal is to be in the "replant mindset".

15. When frequent flyer programs debuted in the early 1980s, load factors on the legacy airlines were at 50-55%.

16. DL has invested $4.3 million in installing two "power poles" at each gate in ATL, JFK and 15 selected cities.

17. A fellow flyertalker got in a lengthy rant about how bad the existing lie flat seats on DL are, that they were uncomfortable, and how someone is going to have a finger severed trying to work the tray table. TM somewhat diffused this but didn't have anything concrete with which to rebut our colleague.

Further affiant sayeth not.