Agreed, close this thread. Do y'all remember the salary range for FAs? It starts in the low 20s. Flying BE for free is the least Delta can do for them. Diamonds and Plats who complain about not being able to more easily access the BE cabin are 9 times out of 10 in a MUCH better position to actually purchase a BE ticket (either with miles or cash) than any NRSA.

Free BE? Fine by me.

I agree! ^

My complaint is very different; my complaint is about keeping the exclusive and quiet nature of the BE cabin to be able to offer and more easily justify the high costs of flying in a premium cabin. By giving the empty seats to Bob's 17 year old nephew, parents, neighbors, and second cousins twice removed, you have taken away just that.

DMs and PMs who do not purchase BE tickets are no more entitled to BE; that is NOT my argument. Go fly J or F on an international based carrier, notice the empty seats and overall much more exclusive feel, and tell me how much better the flying experience it is. Trust me, its noteworthy and ill vote with my $$ everytime.

This thread has not taken a turn for the worse yet, we are all still acting very adult .

I would be fine with DL employees losing their BE privileges only if they received a significant salary increase. Most of them are not paid even close to what they deserve, and I am perfectly fine with DL "devaluing" the BE cabin in order to mitigate this income gap. If you have the $$ to fly in an international carrier's "untainted" premium cabin, I don't know why you're bothering with DL in the first place.

I haven't flown anything less than J internationally in over a decade. Even with that I just can't get worked up over this on DL. Frankly, because it's DL. They aren't a three class International Airline. The meals are nothing to write home about and frankly there are airlines that serve better wine and adult beverages in their Y class than DL serves in J. DL is concerned about the integrity of the price model more than anything else.

What do you mean by "international based carrier?" I've flown JAL, AF, Malev, ANA and others in J and they really weren't anything worth writing home about. DL's J was at least on par.

If you're talking about people who "look" like they're non-revs sitting in the same cabin as you, well, I think you might need to get over yourself. No offense intended.

If you're saying they're ACTING offensive, then you have every right to complain. That said, I was on an ANA flight a year ago in J, and there was a (I assume) Japanese salaryman who had the worst attitude, was disrespectful to the FAs, and was annoying and loud. Does he get a pass because he (or his business) paid for the seat?

Ugh. Why did I get involved?

I find the Delta model to be perplexing. As is well-documented here Delta does not price its international J product competively - far from it. Delta would never be my choice for international J from a service perspective, I 'll either choose Air Canada or Air France.

So international J is priced high, is not used to ensure any customer loyalty, but instead is used as an undefined employee benefit further degrading its product. I'm not a Delta shareholder but were I I would find this model to be of some concern.

I agree with closing this threat. This has been discussed in countless other ones and there is no way for anyone to "win" this. People have their opinions and there is no budging on this.

My two cents are that whoever said this is a benefit is right. My friend works at AT&T and gets free phone/data service on his IPhone. Am I upset about not getting the same? No. My sister works in healthcare and get a significant discount on hospital services. Am I worried about their pricing structure? Not at the least.

Any international legacy (SQ, CX, ANA, BA, etc); we are not discussing quality of the hard product so I will leave that out of it.

The dress irritates me but not enough to actually say anything about it; if people want to be seen in public like that, that is there prerogative, it is not any of my business. But honestly the large, un-showered, safari outfitted, T. Bahama shirt wearing nonrevs on my ATL-BOM and ATL-JNB flights were substantially worse (though still, I said nothing), especially cause their smell had a way of wafting through the whole cabin, as though a reminder that they had not showered in a while and had been running between flights all day. The safari gear clearly had to be kept on the whole flight and not applied nearing arrival into JNB as a reminder to EVERYONE that they are going on Safari for a week .

Its the Non-rev parties that bother me the most. When the FA's stand in front of a couple and talk for 20 minutes in an otherwise dark and quiet cabin discussing company policy, when the service suffers because of it, when the non-rev sitting next to you takes your meal choice because the FA looks at you in casual dress and assumes that you are also a non-rev (has happened twice, this I will not get started on!). Whether you want to admit it or not, a quiet, not completely filled Business cabin is a very common thing outside the US based airlines and it is very, very nice. Its as much an "unpublished perk" as allowing non-revs into BE in the first place. Sure, I have had my occasional filled J cabins on SQ, CX, etc, especially on TPACs, but more often then not the cabin will remain 60% or so full, it will be very quiet, more personal attention from the FAs, the seat next to me may remain open (a bonus, but I am certainly not entitled to it), and there aren't non-revs. The entire experience is much more exclusive, lucrative, and as I said, I will always vote for it with my $$.



Exactly.

It sounds as if the problem truly lies with the decorum and appearance of non-revs. Maybe DL needs to adopt the dress code that NWA had in place for nonrevs and further restrict or even eliminate buddy passes.

Having taken full advantage of my privileges as a non-rev for many years, I have still yet to witness the crazy behavior to the magnitude alleged on this thread. I have witnessed however, the deplorable antics of our paying passengers. But that's another thread. I suspect that the worst offenders and abuse of the non-rev privileges are those on buddy passes. I would venture to guess that someone who has a direct influence on Delta and represents Delta every moment of the day, would respect the concept of our privileges and act with discretion.

If you want less non-revs in BE or F, buy more BE and F tickets. We'd love the business! I can't condone bad behavior, by anyone, but threads like this are pretty petty IMO. The few bad apples that indeed exist, ruin it for the majority of people who do not abuse their privileges. It's as if the rest of the professionals out there NEVER get to take advantage of the privileges that their employer offers. And for the record, AF has an extremely liberal upgrade policy for their "GPs" much like Delta does.

This may blow your mind but the behavior you describe is in no way limited to nonrevs. What about the nonrevs that are well dressed, board quietly, enjoy the service, and generally blend in. Interesting that you criticize other people for how they dress and yet it bothers you when someone assumes that you, too, are a nonrev because you are dressed casually.

And as critical as you and others are of DL's pricing model, why don't you produce some factual data to support your argument that DL is hurting itself and driving business elsewhere. With DL posting year on year unit revenue gains in the 17-20% range (at parity with UA/CO and outpacing AA nearly 2 to 1) driven largely by international operations and premium traffic, it does not seem that allowing nonrevs in premium cabins is significantly impacting premium traffic flows, other than a few people who seem to be bothered by the idea of someone who uses a time clock at work being allowed into a premium cabin.

I would suggest restricting unaccompanied buddy passes up front is reasonable (as some other U.S. carriers do), but with system load factors approaching 88% in recent quarters and recordbreaking premium cabin load factors, that discussion is for the most part moot.

Hopefully you aren't personally offended by my criticism of your arguments but frankly they are ridiculous and not supported by factual data which tells us whether or not Delta is succeeding in the marketplace.

I think some exaggerate the negatives of non-revs and ignore the negatives of their fellow paid passengers, and to me it appears irrational and the result of an inappropriate elitist attitude. You're not promoted to royalty by the act of purchasing a C ticket.

Correction: Anyone with Y/B/M fare can upgrade with miles or SWUs IF there is Z class availability.

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Slight Correction.

On DoD, provided that open J are available, Z has no bearing true bearing. SWU's will indeed clear.

In my experience NRSAs do not always fly "for free." I am not familiar with DL's policies, but half of my family either works for or is retired from AA. The only free NRSA travel on AA (excluding company business) is domestic Y travel for employees and their dependents. All premium class travel costs money, all international travel costs money and all "buddy pass" travel costs money. It is a lot cheaper than buying a confirmed ticket -- a buddy pass ticket in international F is usually comparable to the cheapest restricted Y ticket publicly offered on the same route -- but it is not free.

Also, unlike revenue passengers, non-revs usually have to follow a dress code -- generally smart casual in the back and business attire in the front. I did several very long flights in Y back in my youth, wearing a suit and tie on the off chance that Y would be full and I would be forced into C or F.