mersk862

One simple fix that I'd like to see is expanded premium seats reserved in coach.

As of right now, there are typically four rows of preferred seats in Y on each flight - first two (non-bulkhead) rows, plus the (typical) two exit rows.

One of the things I found that NW did rather well was have no less than seven rows of preferred Y seats on their flights.

Advantages to this are that elites/HVCs (which seem to be a priority right now in Atlanta) have better choices of Y seats (especially closer to departure) - more likely for them to get aisles/windows, rather than grabbing middles or waiting to the airport for a seat assignment.

Additionally, it opens up the odds of more of those seats being available at the airport, allowing non-elites to have a better chance of sitting together if they were seperated.

WBurcham

Logic & understanding right there.

VERY good point. Booking a flight a week out I'm often left with middles & the hope that, if my upgrade doesn't clear, I get one of the preferred seats that just opened up by someone else upgrade clearing.

raehl311

I'm not sure that's true. I think the software may automatically take any flight number that arrives and then departs the same airport on the same day and count it as a direct flight.

DL could probably work around that by not having the same flight number arrive and depart the same airport though.

I think there's also a revenue component... I don't think its a coincidence that the only way to get from MSP to SIN is using the same flight number on both sides of NRT.

Jaimito Cartero

Did you have to punch out the chads on the cards with rocks?

raehl311

Yanking flyers from the back to the front to fill up empty seats is nothing short of good free advertising.

Stripe

CO has a Managing Director of Customer Experience (CO Insider) who is an interface between its customers and the airline's operations. He's (presumably) senior enough to have some influence in resolving the issues that come to his attention (both large and small) and seems to have a keen sense of airline economics. His communication skills are second to none, and he has a background in IT which helps them deliver truly "Best in class" customer-facing systems.

Who is his counterpart at DL? Is there even one? Maybe that's the problem.

bmchris

Really - isn't it also saying why pay when you can get it for free? Also folks without status who paid a higher fare may feel short changed.

Overall, I do agree with the action proposed, but there are other considerations. There is rarely a straight silver bullet.

secretsea18

Perhaps the Delta scanners/computers at the gates are incapable of doing this, but the NW system did, so the precedent for the GA coming back to Y to move customers up to F does exist for part of the current DL.

Why the scanner removes you off the UG list at boarding makes no sense. In terms of getting a flight boarded and off faster, it encourages customers to hang back and not board until later in the boarding process in hopes of getting higher on the UG list, as others above them are removed by the scanner.

While only a few customers would probably be directly impacted (those moved from Y to F), the overall effect would be a faster more orderly boarding process for all flights, if the UG list were adhered to even after boarding the plane.

MikeMpls

We used an ultra-modern O29 keypunch:

kyushuman

Excellent idea. So weird all of the disempowered PM agents who are at the mercy of their computers--even when it defies logic, booking rules, etc--if things don't autoprice, they can't do anything (both with revenue and award tix) other than transfer you.

ADLFO

Yeah, I like SMI, but it is more than obvious that DL has not empowered him the way CO Insider is with CO.