Originally Posted by BenA

I don't understand Delta's attitude and approach here.

Delta is an airline with a comprehensive network, fantastic employees, convenient hubs, and arguably the best domestic experience of any major US airline (including upgrade potential for elites). There's a lot to recommend DL to potential passengers.

There are a few significant drawbacks to Delta, too, from a passenger perspective - primarily, mileage redemption is difficult in a variety of ways, and the program is unattractive to passengers forced by their employer to purchase the lowest logical economy fare when traveling internationally.

Delta's primary competitors, United and American, have different strengths and weaknesses. At a time when United/Continental is making changes to its program, FlyerTalk is the social media forum that offers Delta the best chance of capturing their traffic at the top end of the spectrum. Just look at the "How much do you spend for DM" thread - there are plenty of passengers who pay for full fare tickets who frequent this forum.

I actually agree that Twitter and Facebook should probably be Delta's primary focus. (Notably, in the midst of the 72 hour award change fiasco, United proactively contacted me via Twitter and offered me a status match - so DL's competitors also clearly take those forms of social media very seriously as a way to acquire customers.) But those formats really only impact a single passenger at a time - while FlyerTalk is open content available for anyone trying to choose an airline to anonymously review.

Right now, a passenger interested in learning about Delta would run right into this thread full of negative publicity. This could have been avoided with a few hours a week of basic participation in the forum - not even anything elaborate or revealing. We're all businesspeople too, and we recognize there are legal/regulatory/competitive concerns... but what's the harm in answering factual questions or just acknowledging that Delta has seen a thread and that our feedback is being discussed internally?

Much of our discussion is around mundane aspects of Delta's service - how upgrades work on partners, what order meals are served in, etc. Delta was obviously willing to openly and frankly discuss these issues in person at the last DO meetup - so I really don't understand the reluctance to engage with the same community of people electronically, where the effort will be recognized and appreciated by an even broader audience. A question proactively answered here has the potential to reduce call volume elsewhere, saving costs for you and time for your customers...

United gets this mostly right, and they're the darling of FlyerTalk in part because of their active engagement - despite missing many of the attractive amenities Delta has, like universal Wi-Fi, business class without any middle seats, and hubs that aren't in Chicago or Newark. :P

Please reconsider your FlyerTalk strategy, Delta - we really want you to be financially successful (the more money you make, the more likely our elite benefits are to stay intact!), and we think increased engagement with this community would be mutually beneficial for both your business and our customer experience.