heckler

Total rebrand - same fluff, little added substance. I fear US airlines have (for many years now) thought that their International premium cabins were the cats meow.. meanwhile AF & BA (Europe) Ethiad, Qatar, etc (Middle east) and KE, Thai, SQ, JAL (asia) are running rings around US carriers (to a large degree). I guess everyone's description of "Premium" differs..

Ben and Jerry

Cant tell if the purser made the distinction between paid and non-paid or GUC DM's, but i was on a fully paid Z ticket. Or does discounted also not count to this standard?

For the record, I would consider someone traveling on a GUC also a paying customer. They spent enough to get DM status, otherwise they would not have had that GUC. Non-revs and pups should be at the back of the line of the order taking.

DCAproducer

Status is not a direct reflection of spend. I earned about 105k MQM last year with about $14k MQD. More than enough to meet the DM MQD requirement.

If you pay for J, any J fare, you should expect top level service above any non-rev or GUC or OptUp.

john doe iii

I'm flying LAX-HNL-NGO next week on a 76w with lie-flats. Will this be considered a Delta1 flight? I'm only flying the LAX-HNL segment BTW.

RealHJ

LAX-HNL will be domestic business, so tiny pillow and the tiny, messy red blanket, domestic FC food offerings.

HNL-NGO continuation of the same flight (but with a change to the aircraft that came in on the PVG-NRT-HNL route normally) will be Delta One, with the typical premium economy like service that Delta does in BusinessElite, now known as Delta One. All food on one tray, with no choice of dessert (only "flavored" ice cream, which tastes pretty bad).

You can see the sample "Delta One" menu to expect here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...one-menus.html

Basically, you will get the big duvet and pillow and the amenity kit on HNL-NGO (or would get, if you were continuing on there - but I see that you are not), but food will be comparable to other airlines premium economy and a far cry from KE, MU, JL, CI or other airlines business class offerings.

LAX-HNL will be just lie-flat seats, but all else is domestic FC.

bubbashow

Keep in mind that RealHJ is describing the DL One to beach markets (WHICH IS THE FLIGHT FROM YOUR INQUIRY). While he/she likes to portray that it is systemwide, it is just the beach markets.

If you are on any other DL One-branded flight (other than Hawaii and Beach Markets), you will receive the typical (previous Business Elite) service.

RealHJ

By your definition all flights to Japan are "beach markets" (as Japan is an island, so I can see some logic). LAX-NGO is "beach", got it. So is any way you connect to go on DL to FUK. And so on...

Time to register for another FT username and post some reply liking your own posts again, as you are well known to do?

pbarnette

You clearly don't fly either BA or AF in J if you think they are "running rings around US carriers".

pbarnette

That is a ridiculously disingenuous post, even for you.
I mean, wow.

SEA-Flyer

Japan is not the beach market. In case you haven't figured it out yet, the "beach market" is your own home airport, HNL. Flights between Japan and Hawaii are beach market flights, not because Japan is a beach/island, but because Hawaii is primarily a beach/resort destination and most of the travel between the Hawaii and Japan is tourists.

We all get that you don't like what they've done to service between Hawaii and Japan. But that market is very different from most of the other markets.

TrojanTraveler

I'd take AF with their new J any day over DL. But as long as AF can't guarantee a flat bed on a particular flight, I'll continue to take DL over AF.

The larger issue is that in the absence of loyalty programs, it would become more of an arms race in regards to product/service among the international carriers (which would generally benefit travelers). DL is currently ahead with (and was smarter about), for example, hard product compared to a number of carriers, but that's because of timing (they were first in the current iteration). Just as with any legacy investment, those carriers who are upgrading their fleets after DL did have the advantage of creating a better product.

In the years to come it could be very expensive for DL to keep up. They are going to need to increasingly differentiate themselves with service, and this is one area where I find DL to be increasingly slipping (albeit they were at a much higher level to begin with).

baccarat_king

+1

I'm sort of curious RealHJ, why do you bother flying Delta ex-Hawaii? You really do not like them. You seem genuinely dissatisfied with the premium cabin service.

Have you looked at other carriers? Why don't you just leave Delta and move to "greener pastures?" I mean, that's what I would do, instead of complaining about Delta, Delta BusinessElite or DeltaOne from my market.

I think the new AF 1-2-1 configurations on the 777 are even nicer than the A330s on Delta (the product I am most familiar with). AF catering is also always superior. My issues with AF are their ability to have constant disruptions (strikes) throughout the year. When AF is operating, all is good. I am even really happy with the current state of CDG and Skyteam to Skyteam connections.

TrojanTraveler

Completely agree. To me AF wins as long as you have their new flat beds. And if you have Access No1 (which you do if flying in First/Business), immigration and/or connecting in CDG is fairly easy.

While AF has gotten better, they still could learn a lot from DL in regards to IRROPS. They handled the last strike much better, but last year was fairly bad from a labor strife standpoint. I had problems at CDG, NCE, etc...though to be fair I got stuck in NCE while flying DL.

baccarat_king

also, forgot to mention, the NEW lounge at JFK (terminal 4) is pretty awesome. Very impressed with that lounge.

TrojanTraveler

Ok you've confused me...which lounge is that? The AF lounge is in T1. Is there another new lounge in T4? Would be great to have an alternative to DL's SC.