Any word on when this will actually be implemented?

Not yet. The Delta food PR person said she would reach out so have not bugged her. I will blog it when I have more info.

Thanks!

The whole idea is a lame excuse for not loading enough meals for paid pax. Just let the paid F/D1 have their first choice and upgrades / nonrev last.

I fly a mix of upgrades and paid and every time I am on a paid ticket in D1 and not getting my meal choice I think about flying other airlines (not that meal choice is so important but there is choice of airlines who would love to get my paid C revenue and have better food/seat/service). When I am on upgrade, I am happy with upgrade do not care that much.

Pre-selection is better than what you are describing for most, and for gate upgrades, will be exactly what you are describing.

How do you know that the cabin is not full of many other people who paid to be there? Again, a pre-selection program would solve this problem.

Well 50% of FC, the first six who ordered, got the Short Ribs, and the other 50% got the Pasta, which seems like a fair balance of choice to me, albeit not for passengers seven thru twelve! On my recent A319 flight from GCM>ATL, I was seated in 2A, and after 1A/1B/1C/and 1D had ordered the Shrimp Salad, all that was left for 2A/2B/2C/2D/3A/3B/3C/and 3D was Chicken Pasta, which was actually quite good! So 33% had the Shrimp Salad and 66% the Chicken Pasta as that's the ratio of what was available. What I don't know is whether the same two choices were offered on the ATL>GCM sector, thus the possibility that the ratio of choice was lopsided on the return leg!

^ AA has offered this service for a number of years now and when I do fly with them its nice to be fore-warned that the choice is between the dreaded 'steak' with 'lobster' mac'n'cheese or the ravioli or something else equally offensive. At least with this information, if I'm hungry, I can try to run into the AC/UC/SC and grab a quick bite or something in the terminal and then settle in for my liquid dinner onboard. DL really ought to consider offering this service option sooner rather than later.

I do not think many people will bother with pre-selection, mostly Flyertalkers and people with lots of free time.

I do not want to think about one extra step I need to do before flight. And if forgetting to pre-select would translate to even less choices inboard, it would be worried and look for other flights.

Trust me, its easier just to book SEA-NRT on NH instead of DL and have overall much better experience, not just the meal choice.

This thread, and the AA thread on the pre-select orders being acknowledged, would beg to differ. I don't think these threads are atypical or an improper sampling because when booking on the AA site, the meal selection is just one extra screen to click through when making the reservation.

And comparing DL with NH... :rolleyes:

I suspect many people in paid C book through corporate travel. I myself book on Expedia or corporate, rarely on delta.com.

Selecting a meal at time of booking is silly from my point of view, especially if booking in advance. Do I want tea of coffee in 3 weeks for breakfast? I do not know, do not want to think about it and do not want to spend time thinking about it. When I book ticket, the seat selection is important and booking accodomation / making other arrangement is next step. Meal selection? Hell no. It only becomes somewhat important when I get on the plane and can relax after packing, finishing up work, often getting up early etc. Good thing if I had time to work through the quirks of often dysfunctional international online checkin if my itinerary involved multiple airlines. Meal choice? It can wait.

This is pretty ridiculous and if you really can't be bothered to click a few buttons online, I hope you choose other airlines.

^ Pre-select is an option that can and should be offered to improve the travel experience. Whether the passenger elects to take advantage of it, is entirely up to them. I fail to see how choice is a bad thing in this context; fully acknowledging of course the inconvenience of a few click throughs...

Have you ever flown on AA and seen how this system actually works? You just select the main course you want, and you don't have to do it at booking, you only have to do it within 24 hours of departure. In fact, you don't have to do it at all, and they'll just serve you what they have available once on board the aircraft. I mean, if it takes more than 15 seconds to select your meal, you're doing something wrong. Just think, in the time it took to type that post could have selected like 10-15 meals!

If this individual hasn't shown up in the DYKWIA forum yet, we definitely have found a future member. I think the pre-selecting meal choice is an excellent idea and hope it is implemented soon. I have never not had my preferred meal choice, but certainly eliminates the risk. More importantly it eliminates the guessing game. My next flight is an odd numbered flight about 1100 miles and I am in F, but its in one of the exception times where no meal is served, but I am in one of the exception markets where a meal might be served. Should I eat lunch beforehand or snack? Also eliminates the FEBO nonsense. Should I pick a seat in front or back and are they really going to do BO on the odd numbered flights? My guess is no meal thus FEBO doesn't matter so I picked row 1.

Most of my friends in real world, including people who fly more than I do, would never pre-select meals in advance (for various reasons, because they would not know about it in the first place, would not understand why they need to pre-book, would not care enough, etc). They also do not know what is FEBO.

Explaining people that they need to pre-book because there is not enough choices for everyone is a bad marketing message. Think of a restaurant which asks you to make choice 24 hours in advance. Unless it's a very special menu item, it sends a bad message and it's perfectly OK to run out of some items as long as it does not happen very often. Same with airlines: for special meals or items in book the cook menu (on SQ) it's perfectly OK to require advance selection. For everything else a-la-carte, just load a few more meals.