Delta providing pre-board for corporate clients
 

I was on a call with my company this morning discussing my client, Delta, and learned that Delta will start giving our employees pre-board due to our volume of business with them. We do roughly $25m a year with Delta. They are #3 in airline spend. No idea of the specifics, ie at what level they will board. Just thought it was very interesting.

Anyone else heard this for other customers?

Interesting. One of my coworkers got an e-mail from Delta a month or so back that he would be given access to preferred seats because of our corporate business.

He's the only one I've heard that from, but he's fallen from Gold/Platinum to general member in the past few years.

David

Preferred seats and Zone 1:

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_....html#skymiles

Back in the day MSP had a private TA area for large corporate customers. (Maybe someone can confirm if it's still there?) Back in the 90s my inquiries about better seats were usually accommodated. It was also nice to be able to sit on couches and wait to be called instead of waiting in line.

By pre-board, does Delta mean Zone 1? That's what some passengers with a corporate travel SSR currently get.

FWIW, I've noticed a special check-in area in SEA dedicated just for Microsoft but I couldn't say if it includes any added benefits (priority boarding, preferred seats, etc.).

If "Pre Board" means boarding earlier than the passenger's status and ticket class/fare basis would ordinarily provide, that has been around for ages and UA & AA do something very similar as well.

Zone # is simply baked into the coding and if your ticket is issued by your enrolled corporate TA, it is coded with whatever it is that gets you the higher priority. Same thing for flexibility on otherwise non-flex fares and the like.

Sounds like the conversation between a DL corporate sales person and a travel procurement manager who never takes a plane, selling something as a perk that
- is not needed by the truly frequent travelers
- not known by the non frequent travelers ("oh I got zone 1, no idea why so I don't care that this is a perk of flying DL")

Oh goodness. I hope they just don't add another boarding zone.

It is check-in only.

Prior to the merger, NW had a private check in area behind the glass doors adjacent to security in the new terminal. We were traveling on a broadcast uniting a military mom and her son as a surprise, and we were checked in there. I was told it was for use by Ford motor company. I am sure it is there (looked a lot like the decor of the (then) WorldClub), but I don't know if it is still used.

The priority/private check in at DTW for Ford goes back at least twenty years. I don't know if it ever gave boarding priority.

To me, it's the reported access to preferred seats that's problematic. It seems wrong to expect top tier elites who purchase expensive (coach) tickets close to departure to be more likely to get middle seats in the back because someone who rarely travels DL but works for a certain company grabbed a prime aisle seat.

A corporate contract is MUCH more valuable to DL than any individual flyer. Perks are well deserved for that corporate contract traveler

Perks are well deserved for the company, not the traveler. The contract traveler is likely to be obligated to travel via DL by company policy, the preferred seat provides no further incentive (though certainly nice to have for the traveler).

OTOH, lack of preferred seats can provide disincentive to a Medallion without a corporate contract, and that Medallion has flexibility to choose another carrier. And in the aggregate, the collection of Medallions is probably worth MUCH more to DL[1] than any individual corporate contract, especially when selecting for higher-value last minute purchasers who are most likely to be affected by the lack of decent seats.

[1] Using the $25M number upthread, given that a DM must spend at least $18000 (MQD + taxes), it takes only about 1400 DMs to exceed that spend (which is the equivalent of 1 per 10 flights operated each day). And that completely ignores the rest of the Medallion tiers. And it also ignores that corporate contracts gets discounts, whereas unaffiliated Medallions are paying list price (ie: more for the same ticket).