ND76

The only service aspects that I really miss are the PDB and then the frequent drink refill service in F. I actually prefer getting dinner from one of the restaurants in ATL to being served fair to poor "airline food". I don't mind going to an off-airport store such as Trader Joe's to get my snacks. I tend to sleep a lot on Delta flights, particularly after spending some quality time in a SkyClub. I haven't seen one confrontation between a passenger and either the GAs or FAs since the pandemic started in earnest last March. I think DL pax genuinely enjoyed having the middle seats empty in Y. I think tension on DL flights are going to go up markedly in May.

Yellowjj

Who would be unhappy with a empty middle seat while sitting in economy (besides the folks during the Easter meltdown)? Of course after this month when seat blocking ends and if prices remain high, I don't think Ed will be bringing up net promoter satisfaction scores for the foreseeable future.

btonkid12345

Plus, companies love to hire third parties as basically sycophants to justify the strategies that executives come up with.

Interesting to know (although they would never share) if the methodology to determine the NPS remained identical to the one used before covid - I’m almost certain it isn’t.

MCO Flyer

Exactly! If DL blocked middle seats with little in-flight services in 2019 with no COVID and you were to survey Y pax then, there satisfaction scores would still be high, COVID or Not.

jeet

This!
Block middle seats and the plebs will kick your NPS skyhigh.
With empty middle seat nothing else matters - pandemic, subprime mortgage crisis, recession.. nothing.

DMPHL

I've found as a (matched) DM that the hold times quoted seem to be based on just the general hold time for reservations assistance. One time I was quoted 5 hours, decided to stick around, and had someone in 40 min. Maybe I got lucky, though, and PM and DM hold times right now are usually eons.

unitedbusiness

Agreed. UA seems to be leading the way, in a plethora of ways.

El Boocho

Lol You got lucky with a 40 min hold time...

Repooc17

United as well. I am flying next week to cross the 1K line but have held back on future bookings until I have a chance to reassess. Good luck in your search

PHXflier

This is one of those cases where in a year or so (and not now) one can see who has made the right calls and who has not; kneejerk responses typically do not cut it. None of the airline CEOs is clairvoyant. The main weirdness facing Delta right now are the incredibly long wait times to get a hold of an agent over the phone and some of the ones I have spoken to recently are pretty clueless, but the latter can have its advantages too . The rest of the complaints voiced are all fairly minor: yes, some 100 flights cancelled over the Easter weekend, and yes, they should have had sufficient personnel and not filled middle seats, and yes, hopefully they will have their problem solved in time for Memorial Day, but in the big scheme of things it is a blip on the radar screen. And personally I do not miss the food and drinks all that much until flight attendants and a good number of the passengers have been vaccinated. By the way, no, I am not a Delta apologist; I fly the airline where I feel safest and can get me there at a reasonable price, and that often is Delta.

iazflyer

The math doesnt work, if thats what you mean. I think he means that even with fewer seats, they get better pricing, so revenues are similar to competitor who book the middle seat at a lower price.

CoMooter

For me, eight tickets for this DM booked just this week, mostly out of SEA and they are all on AS as a result of Ed. The fact that many of them are O/D SEA which is especially gratifying considering the continuing impact of another of Ed's well thought out 'strategic' partner choices that would impact DL's long term growth.

In any case, the impact of Ed's personal 'dalliance' which is now unfortunately DL's Corporate 'policy' will probably be relatively limited for long standing customers stuck in ATL and to a certain extent DTW and SLC where realistic choices are few. But, for those of us with options it looks like a replay of my long ago personal DL policy of 'until Leo is gone so am I...' is now fully back in effect with Leo's name being switched out for Ed's.

jalves

Happy to see Ed and Delta going public with their support for equal rights for all. I'll remain faithful to Delta because they care.

cmd320

I'm of the opinion that the NPSs are relatively meaningless, especially as they pertain to airline products.

Even when someone says "I'll never fly X again" chances are, if X is offering a flight $200 cheaper than Y, they will. Most consumers are meaningless to airlines. They'll ping-pong back and fourth between the three or four choices they have as the prices and times vary. Now with the middle seat blocked, that does add a level of value to the general flyer, but if you took a survey of that same demographic flying right now, what percentage would even be able to tell you Delta blocks its middles?

Whatever NPS boost Delta thinks it saw, it was almost definitely amongst customers that don't really matter to an airline. In 22 days when the all the seats on the plane are filled this will be entirely irrelevant and the homogenized collection of dismal domestic airline products will once again all be viewed in pretty much the same light.

btonkid12345

Which just goes to show you the effect of marketing. Folks could buy the empty middle next to them when fares were lower for about the same price!

And that way, actually guarantee the seat is empty. And Delta could better react to the price elasticity of customers by having that option for those willing to pay, while keeping the low fare for those that aren’t.

In fact, Delta should consider marketing this as a “permanent upgrade” opportunity to these fools: UPGRADE NOW for only $99 and continue to guarantee an empty middle seat next to you!

This would be pure profit for them in cases where the flight load isn’t full and that customer may have ended up with an empty seat, or empty row, anyways (I know this isn’t happening now because of all the capacity reductions, but in general).