Is DL missing me?
 

I have recently moved over to AA until I get EXP status, and I was wondering if DL ever realizes that someone who travels almost every week, and buy tickets typically less than a week in advance, has suddenly stopped flying on DL. For the first six months of this year, I did 45K EQMs on 70 segments. Since June, zilch....but 38K and 26 segments on AA.

I'm not trying to pretend that I'm so important, just wondering if DL has some sort of thing in place where they might recognize a sudden change in habits. Of course, all of the DL people at my home airport have noticed. Each week its, "Hey, where are you going?" as I walk over to the AA counter.

Just wondering if DL notices these things.

randidliyo

As you mentioned, aside from your home airport DL folks, I'm guessing Virginia Ave neither knows nor cares all that much. How is AA working out for you?

My guess is they will if it keeps up and they may invite you to take part in a promo or two to entice you to fly more again, but not much else outside of that.

As an individual, no way that DL can tend to dealing with every person that does that kind of move. You could have been fired, quit, had a medical event, or any number of things that may cause you to stop flying altogether.
However, if DL sees a trend of FFers that stop flying (with them), they may start checking in with some of them as a damage control mechanism, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

In 2002, after 9/11 combined with the dot.com crash (and over 10 years ago), my flying dropped to "merely" gold level. I remember getting a call from Delta, along with a couple of e-mails, asking "what happened" so they _can_ do the data mining if they need to. Of course it was a different time and certainly a different Delta back then.

Today, they are filling the planes more than ever, so if the OP drops out they have another body to fill the seat. If the situation changes and overall traffic drops, I'm sure they'll take action.

Other than a couple of flights on AF and a Skywest (DL) flight between LAX and SMF last month, I have not been on a DL plane since March.

Am pretty sure they do not care....

Don't personalize things. DL isn't a person and you are a # to DL. Nobody is sitting at a desk wondering why revenue from you dropped. At a micro level, people stop flying for many reasons. At a macro level, DL watches what happens to everything and might, on an automated basis, chuck some promo your way to see what's up.

We're moving to a domestic system in which there will be three legacy carriers. Same sorts of threads on UA and AA with people saying it, "lovin it over at DL". That's a wash.

Real question is whether carriers such as B6 make inroads with a premium product.

Decent summary. DL is a $35 Billion business with >160 million pax flown each year. No offense to OP but no airline is going to micromanage this down to an individual level. Well, perhaps they would if you happened to have a history of spending a billion/yr with them but that's ridiculous.

Totally different story if you were the corp travel manager for a F-500 company and your biz was down 50% from last year. UA felt some sting from this.

A bit OT but B6 is moving out of their comfort zone. Winners will be pax because of the addl competition but we will see -- in the future, of course -- how well this plays out.

Agreed with what others have said that in the grand scheme, no DL does not miss you. But I wouldn't be surprised if they had some kind of algorithm that notices your decreased travel and sends a form "Come back, we're awesome" email.

Then again, it's DL IT at issue, so maybe not...

They did send me an email acknowledging the ex-LHR trip I have next month...offering me (US passport holder, which is saved in my DL profile) to use their "preferred" visa service.

Um, yeah, I don't need a US visa to go home. ;)

When I asked "wil they miss me" it was mostly a joke. I don't expect a phone call but I was more curious to know, as some pointed out, that some promos might come my way as a result of my inactivity. I'm thinking about the other thread where you are able to decode what DL knows about you after you log in and in a few months I'll be able to decode it again and see if anything has changed.

As for AA, I can't complain. All of the airlines are pretty much the same. I don't get many upgrades with AA, but so many of my flights on DL were in single class aircraft that it doesn't matter much. I did get an op-up on my DFW-ICN back in June, both directions, so that was great. On the way back from LHR I was on their new 777-300 (77W) and it was nice, nice, nice. The AVOD there was terrific, better than anything I've seen on other carriers. It was just like a middle of the road tablet computer, lots of choices, easy to use. Haven't had any issues so far with AA so we will see how it goes. If I go get some evidence that DL misses me, in any sort of way, I'll post it here.

What's interesting about this is that you'd think the local station manager would prompt something. It's all about knowing who your customers are.

Eons ago I made my first elite status being a regular on a late red-eye out of LAX. When I crossed into the territory where I qualified for free upgrades, the gate agent gave me a congrats note from the station manager there on the first flight where I received an upgrade.

Oh we have talked about it for the past few weeks. She knows that since I have 230K MQM that I can roll over that it makes no sense for me to continue flying DL since the MQDs start in January and I'll be starting from scratch. Over the past few years I kept flying DL because of the rollover. Now, the rollover has been effictively eliminated. Her response was, "Yeah, I totally understand and I've told people that". Beyond that, nothing.

Keep in mind, with the details of the merger pending, AA could implement some form of EQD or something...without knowing the details of what AAdvantage will look like under AA/US leadership, the grass might not be greener in some respects.

Is DL missing me?
 

I would say by their recent quarterly profits, stock gains, and dividend announcement.......probably not