Originally Posted by
nomiiiii
Domestic flight today, Seattle to Minneapolis. I'm a basic Delta member (no status), on a cheap basic economy ticket, row 33.
After everyone has boarded, before the flight takes off, the flight attendant comes to row 34 and addresses the clearly novice traveling family with kids and loudly says "Hendricks* family, thank you so much for choosing and trusting us to fly today we appreciate it!" (*name changed)
And then, about a minute later, she comes up to me,a loudly says "Mr Nomiiii, thank you so much for choosing us,do you fly with us often?". I reply like maybe once a month and she's really appreciative and thanks me again by name loudly.
We are the ONLY two people I hear being thanked loudly in the back rows (too far back to know what goes on in first class/econ comfort).
My question is, why? Why were we thanked but not others in the back rows basic economy area? Is it because I have a Delta Reserve card? Like I said, I don't have any Delta status ( was silver last year, but this basic econ ticket was bought a month ago without status).
DL FAs have handhelds, and they've been known to get assignments from some algorithm to thank certain passengers on certain flights, though it's almost always reports from medallions.
My guess is that with FF and business travel so far in the toilet (and medallion status essentially worthless for the near future), the marketing guys told the IT gurus to use some "big data" to try to identify people who they can cultivate loyalty with that may potentially be big spenders. The DL Reserve card is probably what triggered it in this case.
Of course, I wish they would fix the many documented IT issues instead of rolling out in flight thank yous to new demo groups. I think it's also worth noting with an ongoing pandemic that this creates an additional, and unnecessary, point of contact between FAs and pax (and is probably why the FA was so loud, usually the thank you is a bit more discreet, but that requires less distance).
In any event, it's a great data point, and thank you for sharing.