What was the old Delta like?
Aug 8, 2008, 10:30 pm
#46
Suspended
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: SC72
Programs: DL
Posts: 91
6) Upgrades confirmable when booked (I think all fares initially, then K+). Half MQM's on SLUT fares and not being able to confirme upgrades AT TIME OF PURCHASE forced me to United.
Great thread! ^
Aug 8, 2008, 10:38 pm
#47
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Augusta, GA, USA
Programs: DL FC, NW
Posts: 3,522
I wonder how they'd react is someone told them how to run their business.
Aug 8, 2008, 10:45 pm
#48
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: RDU
Programs: AA LTP, Bonvoy Titanium; AA CK before I retired
Posts: 1,597
1970s: Hot breakfast served in coach on flights as short as 150 miles. 747s.
1980s: Royal Service on some domestic flights, with free champagne and steak dinners in coach. The original Frequent Flyer program was based on segments not miles, and you had to retain your boarding passes as proof because Delta did not have a tracking system at first. Re-engined DC-8's that would get off the ground like a rocket. First class domestic upgrades for frequent flyers, priced originally at $10, $20, or $30 depending on flight length. Night fares; FN was priced the same as Y, so you could get a Y ticket from your employer and then delay your afternoon flight just enough to get FN at no extra charge (same trick often worked on the Early Bird flights at dawn). But best of all, employees who truly cared and would bust their butts for passengers.
1980s: Royal Service on some domestic flights, with free champagne and steak dinners in coach. The original Frequent Flyer program was based on segments not miles, and you had to retain your boarding passes as proof because Delta did not have a tracking system at first. Re-engined DC-8's that would get off the ground like a rocket. First class domestic upgrades for frequent flyers, priced originally at $10, $20, or $30 depending on flight length. Night fares; FN was priced the same as Y, so you could get a Y ticket from your employer and then delay your afternoon flight just enough to get FN at no extra charge (same trick often worked on the Early Bird flights at dawn). But best of all, employees who truly cared and would bust their butts for passengers.
Aug 8, 2008, 11:19 pm
#49
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: AUS
Programs: AA Exec Platinum/MM, DL Gold/MM, Hilton Diamond, Accor Platinum, Hertz Presidents Circle
Posts: 6,960
Delta's demise began with the purchase of Pan Am in 1991. Prior to that they were a class act, probably the best domestic carrier, albeit with a relatively small international network. They were my airline of choice.
Then they bit off more than they could chew. The European routes they acquired from Pan Am were money losers, an operational nightmare due to the decrepit state of the Pan Am equipment, and a marketing disaster. The Pan Am brand was known and respected worldwide. No one outside of the US had ever heard of Delta. The resulting financial mess ultimately forced company-wide cutbacks and poor employee relations. What a shame.
Then they bit off more than they could chew. The European routes they acquired from Pan Am were money losers, an operational nightmare due to the decrepit state of the Pan Am equipment, and a marketing disaster. The Pan Am brand was known and respected worldwide. No one outside of the US had ever heard of Delta. The resulting financial mess ultimately forced company-wide cutbacks and poor employee relations. What a shame.
Aug 9, 2008, 8:31 am
#50
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: In the sticks
Programs: VS FC Gold, BA EC Gold, Amex Centurion, EK Gold, ex-G-ATVK driver
Posts: 1,816
I used to fly in FC internationally to Europe and Asia a lot, that is when they had real FC internationally and not just business elite. The planes were L1011s and MD11s. The crews were great, the food was really great (caviar with ice cold vodka and all the trimmings, etc.), and the ground staff bent over backwards to solve problems when things went wrong. Never had trouble using FF miles for awards or upgrades.
The rot set in for me when they removed intercontinental F and made only certain Y fares upgradeable. But to be fair they are trying to run a business, not an upgrade charity for me!
Cheers, Howard
Last edited by Howard Long; Aug 9, 2008 at 8:51 am
Aug 9, 2008, 12:20 pm
#53
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: VPS
Programs: DL DM/2MM, Etihad Gold, HHonors Diamond, SPG Gold
Posts: 4,787
Aug 9, 2008, 12:42 pm
#54
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: In the sticks
Programs: VS FC Gold, BA EC Gold, Amex Centurion, EK Gold, ex-G-ATVK driver
Posts: 1,816
1998 Intercontinental First Class menu
Reading this thread prompted me to scan in a couple of menus for posterity.
LGW-ATL FC Food menu October 1998 12.7Mb
Vinum III FC menu 1998
45Mb
Cheers, Howard
LGW-ATL FC Food menu October 1998 12.7Mb
Vinum III FC menu 1998
45Mb
Cheers, Howard
Aug 9, 2008, 1:37 pm
#55
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Seat 1A (hopefully) between JAN and ???
Programs: DL PM .313 MM & CRC, AA .453 MM, HH Silver, Priority Club, Fairmont President's Club
Posts: 261
The 90s? With the 80s, eras of depravity and degeneration, when the old standards were abandoned for greedy corporate excess!
DL was the most identifiably regional of the majors, smelling of magnolias and dripping Southern charm from every orifice (and armpit) back in the 60s when I started traveling. Back then, it was a "domestic" airline, with little pretense of or aspirations for international service (the bailiwicks of PanAm and TWA), founded in Monroe, LA, and still holding its annual stockholders' meeting there, not yet besmirched by the corporate madness of Atlanta's pretentious upscalism.
The story was that for us Southerners to get to Heaven, we'd have to change planes at ATL, a sprawling "long stroll" terminal on a human scale. DL's stewardae were Southren girls and talked that way, smelled good and could be counted on to deliver the sweetest of music, the brushing together of nylon clad thighs as they passed your row.
I never saw the front cabin in those days, but even in the back of the bus, when some TriDelt from Tuscaloosa used her white-gloved hands to slip you a extra miniature of good whisk(e)y "on the house". I was seduced. DL was the flying mistress of my choice, her young ladies more approachable than the bilingual sophisticates from PanAm who lived "hot bunking" in apartments in Kew Gardens, Queens and flew out of IDL.
The finest flight of my life, an evening "standby", 1971 or so, SFO/DFW, a 747, dress blues with the new gold stripes of a LCDR, coming back from Reserve duty, but mistaken by the DL gate agents to be returning from SEA, put up in the nose FC, to be served prime rib carved to order from a serving cart, and spoiled and ready to be despoiled by the young ladies who seemed to feel the need to tend me and attend to me upon what they believed to be my return from the wars.
Even for me, jaded from half a decade of too many hours in the cabin or back seat of Navy fixed and rotary winged a/c around the Med and in Asia, flying commercially was still a step above the mundane, and the atmosphere created by DL had some of the cachet of colonels and crinolines. I had a friend from Georgia who even claimed that DL was the successor to Confederate Army Air Corps, kept in secrecy for a century in a hot air balloon shed, to provide a haven for Southern road warriors, far more glamorous than the routine efficiencies C. R. Smith was pushing over at AA.
DL was the most identifiably regional of the majors, smelling of magnolias and dripping Southern charm from every orifice (and armpit) back in the 60s when I started traveling. Back then, it was a "domestic" airline, with little pretense of or aspirations for international service (the bailiwicks of PanAm and TWA), founded in Monroe, LA, and still holding its annual stockholders' meeting there, not yet besmirched by the corporate madness of Atlanta's pretentious upscalism.
The story was that for us Southerners to get to Heaven, we'd have to change planes at ATL, a sprawling "long stroll" terminal on a human scale. DL's stewardae were Southren girls and talked that way, smelled good and could be counted on to deliver the sweetest of music, the brushing together of nylon clad thighs as they passed your row.
I never saw the front cabin in those days, but even in the back of the bus, when some TriDelt from Tuscaloosa used her white-gloved hands to slip you a extra miniature of good whisk(e)y "on the house". I was seduced. DL was the flying mistress of my choice, her young ladies more approachable than the bilingual sophisticates from PanAm who lived "hot bunking" in apartments in Kew Gardens, Queens and flew out of IDL.
The finest flight of my life, an evening "standby", 1971 or so, SFO/DFW, a 747, dress blues with the new gold stripes of a LCDR, coming back from Reserve duty, but mistaken by the DL gate agents to be returning from SEA, put up in the nose FC, to be served prime rib carved to order from a serving cart, and spoiled and ready to be despoiled by the young ladies who seemed to feel the need to tend me and attend to me upon what they believed to be my return from the wars.
Even for me, jaded from half a decade of too many hours in the cabin or back seat of Navy fixed and rotary winged a/c around the Med and in Asia, flying commercially was still a step above the mundane, and the atmosphere created by DL had some of the cachet of colonels and crinolines. I had a friend from Georgia who even claimed that DL was the successor to Confederate Army Air Corps, kept in secrecy for a century in a hot air balloon shed, to provide a haven for Southern road warriors, far more glamorous than the routine efficiencies C. R. Smith was pushing over at AA.
There was an old story surrounding the DL annual stockholders' meeting that was always held in Monroe, Louisiana.
Supposedly, a woman from New York City was attending her first meeting, and in the part of the meeting when stockholders were allowed to put motions before the board, she stood, was recognized, and made the following proposal:
"I move that the next meeting be held in New York City. New York is a much better site for a meeting of the stockholders of a company such as Delta. Surely no one here would object moving our meeting away from a backwater town such as Monroe, to a great cosmopolitan city such as New York."
The room grew silent. A distinguished gray-haired lady rose to her feet, and was immediately recognized by the chair. In a strongly-southern-accented voice, she asked the woman who had just spoken her name, and how many shares of DL stock she owned. The woman gave her name and replied that she owned 1000 shares [let's just say use this number for argument's sake]. The second woman then stated "My name is Mrs. Biedenharn, and I own [six gazillion shares or some such number], and I think I can safely say that as long as I am alive, our meetings will continue to be held in Monroe, Louisiana.
Aug 12, 2008, 8:46 am
#57
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 48
Being a PM based out of PDX's DL hub was great. Since PDX was a major APAC hub it was easy to get widebody first upgrades in either MD-11's or Tri Stars to all the other hubs like CVG, SLC, ATL and DFW. (later it was 767-300ER's)
My upgrade % was 99% and it was on any fare and any flight.
DL would serve full meals on even short flights like PDX-SLC.
PDX had a great group of employees. There was comradery among the FF's, gate agents/red coats and entire CR staff. (there were even dual CR's at one point).
If a flight got screwed up, the DL staff would get me an alternate and it was always in F even on another airline. The alternate routing arrangements
would often be fixed before I even knew there was a problem.
On some of the MD-11 flights, the Captain would personally great all the passengers and describe details of the flight.
Even before I became PM, DL would often call me up to the gate and upgrade me without even asking. Once I was traveling with my wife and DL upgraded her and said, "Mrs. ______, here's your first class seat and please tell your husband we appreciate his business".
Those were the good old days!!
My upgrade % was 99% and it was on any fare and any flight.
DL would serve full meals on even short flights like PDX-SLC.
PDX had a great group of employees. There was comradery among the FF's, gate agents/red coats and entire CR staff. (there were even dual CR's at one point).
If a flight got screwed up, the DL staff would get me an alternate and it was always in F even on another airline. The alternate routing arrangements
would often be fixed before I even knew there was a problem.
On some of the MD-11 flights, the Captain would personally great all the passengers and describe details of the flight.
Even before I became PM, DL would often call me up to the gate and upgrade me without even asking. Once I was traveling with my wife and DL upgraded her and said, "Mrs. ______, here's your first class seat and please tell your husband we appreciate his business".
Those were the good old days!!
Aug 18, 2008, 10:24 am
#58
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Programs: DL DM; UA; AA
Posts: 446
In other words, you could hardly find a, say, modest NYC-CHI-NYC round trip for less than something like $1000 (or whatever the inflation factor is) in today's dollars?
Aug 18, 2008, 6:47 pm
#59
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 534
well, it was quite good in the late '80s, when i started flying(a LOT).
But, one must remember, that it would still be quite good today, if'n we were paying 2-3 times the $$ we're paying now, allowing for inflation.
BUT, we're not, so no surprise.
I first flew to Hawaii in 1988, and since then, the ticket prices hasn't really changed any, but 20 yrs of inflation shows how much $$ has been wrung out of the true cost of the ticket.
Considering that 1988 coach dollars would buy a 2008 Biz seat, and all of a sudden, things aren't quite as bad as it might appear...
But, one must remember, that it would still be quite good today, if'n we were paying 2-3 times the $$ we're paying now, allowing for inflation.
BUT, we're not, so no surprise.
I first flew to Hawaii in 1988, and since then, the ticket prices hasn't really changed any, but 20 yrs of inflation shows how much $$ has been wrung out of the true cost of the ticket.
Considering that 1988 coach dollars would buy a 2008 Biz seat, and all of a sudden, things aren't quite as bad as it might appear...
Aug 18, 2008, 8:43 pm
#60
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: ATL
Programs: DL SkyMiles, MR, HH, ICH/PC, Avis Pref., Hertz Gold
Posts: 2,897
I don't think DL flew NYC-CHI direct back then. It would have been AA and UA.
While we are talking about fares and the "good old days", DL got in a bit of hot water back then when it was discovered that their phone center would only quote full Y fares unless a lower fare was specifically asked for.
It wasn't all wonderful.