Originally Posted by
tphuang
I wasn't talking about upgrades to y+. I was talking about first class upgrades. On aa and ua, you can select y+ at booking at time of booking. You don't need to get upgraded to y+. Of the 3 legacy airlines, DL has imo the worst incentives for ff. I am saying this as a star alliance ff.
As for the other stuff, I guess we will have to see. The bad on time performance, small route network and subpar operation are not exactly new issues. If there is customer satisfaction decline on a wide level, I am sure we will see that show up eventually in any of the measurables. If anything, their operation was even worse two years ago at the height of their contract negotiations with pilots. it has actually improved noticeably in 2019. And now maybe because flight attendants voted to form union due to deterior relationship with management, you are seeing worse customer service. I would have expected these things to show up in customer satisfaction scores by now. It would seem to me that ff are more unhappy these days than before. And that's something they need to address.
As for profit sharing, these things are calculated based on a formula from pilot negotiations with airlines. Delta pilots got a great deal when they signed it during tough times.
Right, I knew what you were talking about re: upgrades. For my purposes Comfort+ is all I need, as I mentioned above. I just need room to work on my laptop; business class and first class are, for me, superfluous; I sleep well on planes and don’t need massive legroom or lie flat seats. Hence I don’t really care if it’s easier to get business or first class upgrades on AA or United.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by “you can select Y+ at time of booking” on AA or UA. You mean you can pay for it? Of course you can. And you can also do this on Delta. I’m saying as a Platinum Medallion you get *complimentary* upgrades to Comfort+ at the time of booking, for no extra charge. That’s worth a lot to me. Unless you’re saying you get those as elites on AA and UA - but my point is that Delta also has excellent customer service, great on time performance, and management that seems to be constantly moving the airline forwards, not backwards. My comment about Comfort+ upgrades is just that this will be my way of attempting to get all that AND JetBlue level legroom for free, not that this is some unique feature of Delta’s FF program.
As for AA and UA, I’m sure these airlines work for others. But if I’m complaining about JetBlue’s decline in customer service, it would take a hell of a lot to convince me to favor American “Oasis” Airlines or United “how many horror stories can we cram into one year” Airlines.