Couple of points:
ON AMS - You have to be very careful on upgrades and any changes in AMS (even in paid J and having IRROPs). AMS is managed by KLM and KLM staff all feel entitled to the open J seats as you get close to departure (like 3 hours). I had IRROPs once and there was an open J seat on the next flight. KLM staff at the Delta gate refused to put me in the seat saying it was given to staff. I called DL in the US and they put me in the J seat (thanks to delta.com and expert flyer for letting me know there was 1 J seat still for sale). Literally got yelled at by the KLM age for going behind her back. The diamond line stayed on until KLM gave me the boarding pass (I didn't to be unchecked in). Crazy. The best way to get day of upgrades in AMS is the KLM lounge (believe it or not). Only issue there is you need a ticket to speak to an agent so hard to tell the wait.

Final thought on the PS service declines people keep mentioning. DL was always known for their onboard service. I am so confused why they would diminish that especially since GUCs now goto PS and PS is like $2500 plus to EU. The J meal must cost like $15. I think someone from DL needs to really look to bringing back PS service to normal. Saying its the pandemic doesn't cut it anymore.

I wonder if the plan PRIOR to the pandemic was to downgrade the PS meals. I wonder this due to the "upgrade" that occurred to the economy meals to the "bistro" meal that they had rolled out

Maybe DL decided that the Bistro economy meal is good enough for PS?

I think Delta has had a tough time positioning Premium Select. The "shelf" for an intercontinental flight is getting crowded with Basic Economy, Main Cabin, Comfort+, Premium Select, and Delta One. I'd bet that if you asked a non-enfranchised customer to describe the products, they'd nail Delta One ("the best" / "First Class" (ugh)) but would really struggle to differentiate between some of the options in the middle. Delta brought this on themselves a bit by marketing Comfort+ as though it were a separate cabin (though it is not).

There are two key markets for PS: business travelers whose travel policies allow it (price-insensitive, will choose based on amenities) and premium leisure travelers willing to pay for a marginally better experience (price-sensitive, will choose based on price). The pendulum has swung significantly towards leisure since COVID, so airlines compete on price and don't bring back enhanced amenities to woo business travelers.

If premium economy was closer to domestic business class (food on china, more than one pass with the drink cart / a flight attendant to fill orders from the galley) I might be more interested in buying it. Right now, PS is just economy with a nicer seat.

premium leisure travelers are not going for PE. They are going for business or first these days.

They may be buying discounted business class tickets, but they are still buying business class tickets. I usually only buy J when traveling on leisure. The ultra wealthy leisure travelers are buying international F

Now the business travelers who are forced to fly PE (which is becoming very common as most businesses do not pay for J anymore), may not be the happiest about economy service

I wonder whether the numbers showed that too many customers were defecting from D1 to PS? Part of the problem with these intermediate cabin offerings is positioning the product so that it doesn't cannibalize sales of higher cabin tickets (at higher prices, of course, and presumably with greater profitability). It might not be a good business model to make PS too nice.

I disagree with the post above this re: leisure going F/J/Z… but I have done PS/G class a bunch of times.
the bigger seat means less or no jetlag for me… and headphones mean more room in my bag since I can leave my Sony’s at home.

but the crap meals and other related cost cutting - PLUS nearly doubling of the fare - is horse sh-t.

But I was reading somewhere that Delta makes more money on PS customers than they do on D1 customers based on the price/footprint.

Disagree on this. Premium Economy is often the most profitable cabin per square foot, as a Google search on this topic returns multiple articles (including the Wall Street Journal) confers.

Another article from Bloomberg notes that airlines are removing J seats to add PE seats:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...usiness-travel

That’s not a surprise based on cabin layout. Effectively with PS you get (roughly) double the seats per row and double the rows in the same footprint of 1 row of D1. So 4 D1 seats or 16 (again roughly) PS seats.

What is surprising to me is that they are apparently finding enough paying customers to fill all those PS seats (especially on 359s which have a LOT of PS seats). Every PS flight I’ve been on this year, the cabin was packed, with plenty of empty seats in the back. Eyeballing profiles, it appears a lot of the travelers are leisure pax (of course that’s nothing more than my anecdotal opinion).

I ascribe a lot of this to the pandemic-induced “pent-up-travel-rage”, so for now DL can get away w subpar soft product. But as soon as we start seeing slowdowns in travel spending, suddenly to a lot of leisure travelers, C+ Likely looks a lot better than shelling out for PS.

My family of four booked PS between DTW and LHR in September because we had about 1k each in credits from cancelled pandemic travel and essentially viewed the credits as a subsidy for what we hope will be a nicer experience.

My family of four just flew DTW - LHR last week in PS and the experience was underwhelming. Larger seats, but awful service and food.

I’m not sure I would pay a premium for a short flight but we were sure glad we had PS on our ATL-JNB-ATL flights pre-pandemic. Sure it’s a far cry from D1 but on such a long flight, it felt far superior to a aisle/window and middle seat next to each other in coach

Longer term this is an issue, but when there are a fixed number of D1 and PS seats on a flight, if a customer buys PS instead of D1, the fare difference is much more than the cost of one additional person's D1 F&B, lounge visit (if not eligible otherwise), blanket/pillow, and amenity kit. In fact, the fare difference is close to pure profit (or pure lack of loss) if a NRSA takes the D1 seat and consumes F&B, etc., which is probably already ordered and loaded for the flight. Airlines want to attract/convince passengers to buy PE rather than coach, not PE rather than business class.

OTOH, for major full service carriers operating major longhaul international routes, prestige requires that at least business class be offered. It might be smart to convert some D1 seats to PS, but DL can't totally eliminate D1 on most of its international routes (although some of the KEF flights seem to be a bit of an experiment in this direction). It also doesn't make sense to offer just a very few D1 seats, like a row or two as some carriers are currently doing for IFC.

Just changed the return flight to Virgin Premium through ATL. Still hoping Delta improves things by September for the outgoing flight, but current Virgin service level seems to be closer to what we wanted

How does that work? Is it your same reservation, just switched to a Virgin plane?