Yesterday, Canarsie and I had the pleasure of hosting a follow-up Thank You Luncheon for the over 70 Delta employees that were involved in the Road Warrior Training/DO Event last June. In addition to the Delta employees and the Atlanta Airport Firefighters, the FlyerTalk volunteers that participated in the event, Flyin’Mom, scoow, atlrunner, WesNSpace, davakkar, bennos, ShopAround and Flyzabit, were also able to join us for a great afternoon.

This was the first time that so many Delta Air Lines company departments and employee volunteers had come together for a single customer event. On behalf of all of the FT participants, we were able to formally express our gratitude to Delta Air Lines for hosting us for the event in June, and personally thank the many Delta Air Lines employees who volunteered and worked so hard to contribute to this event.

In addition to having all the Employees in attendance, we were honored to have Richard Anderson and Jeff Robertson there as our guest speakers and they both took time from their busy schedules to spend almost two hours with us yesterday. I personally found Richard Anderson to not only be extremely personable, but also very involved in the details of SkyMiles program integration, and at many levels regarding the overall customer experience. He told me that he is proud of the Delta employees, and that the focus would be on empowering the employees that make the right decisions for Delta’s customers.

I have posted a few of the pictures below, and we are working on posting the pictures and videos from the day , (we also now have a slide show video from the June event) so more to come. I am sure that the others that were there will also post their comments and feedback about the luncheon and the day.

At the end of the luncheon, the FT Volunteers had the pleasure of spending time at the Delta Training Center in a Flight Simulator. It was an exciting and informative day for everyone. I will let others post their feedback, impressions and comments, but I wanted to share a few of my own with everyone.

A special thank you to Anita for spending the entire afternoon with us discussing next years' event. All I can say is fasten your seat belts.

• Delta is fully committed to having this event again in the Spring. They not only will help with the planning and resources, but will take an even bigger role in hosting the event in the future. Many asked how we could raise the bar next time, well, let’s just say in the discussions about next year, the next event will certainly be able to raise the bar quite a bit. I think everyone will be excited about some of the opportunities… Stay tuned more to come soon!
  
  
• Delta takes the feedback on FlyerTalk very seriously, and even Richard Anderson personally reads the feedback on FlyerTalk.
  
  
• Delta will be making some key investments in 2010, and would like the feedback from some small FT member focus groups on their service, aircraft seating and a variety of other topics, so stayed tuned for more on that.
  
  
• The merger integration is on schedule, and the work around the integration of the WorldPerks and SkyMiles program is well underway. More details and information to come soon. The SkyMiles team is reading the feedback on FlyerTalk and is working to incorporate some changes to the program for 2010.

Thank you to everyone that participated in yesterday’s events. I hope you continue to have safe travels.

Thanks for sharing this even with other FT'ers. Due to a family illness, I was unable to attend this year's Delta DO. I am delighted to hear that Delta is committed to repeating this next year and l look forward to attending.

Thank you for all of your efforts and thank you, Delta!

Thanks for letting us know about this event -- and for organizing the original. I'll come back for more.

Thanks for sharing the info, keep us posted. I would love to attend next year!

With all due respect to your great event and follow-up appreciation, but your statement makes me wonder if we should be be putting more pressure on Anderson than Robertson for what they've done to royally annoy WorldPerks Elites?

The openess of what you said is in stark contrast to the derth of communication from DL here on FlyerTalk. I really hope that is about to change.

Yes, ultimately Richard is in charge... Jeff is just the SkyMiles face.

It's been changing as time has worn on, as evidenced by the open communication from Kevin, Drew & Josh.

Kevin was among those present, and it was made clear how we appreciate his involvement in resolving various issues FTers have encountered.

Great, I'd asked davakkar about the event briefly and he'd mentioned Kevin was there.

He's been a great help getting things resolved and understands the "can do" attitude that I've almost always found pervasive at Delta.

I for one would look forward to an event in the spring. Wasn't able to make RWT/DO, but since I will be assimilated exactly one week from today I might as well start hitting up the DL DOs .

(Wonder if I could get Jeff to sign my diamond elite card?)

We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your life as it has been is over. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

If you do add my technological distinctiveness, then I think it would be worth it but in all seriousness and getting back on topic, do you expect the spring event to be on a weekday? Any chance of getting it on a friday if it's a weekday (preferably with lots of advance notice)?

I am not sure what I said that would indicate we need to put "pressure" on the Delta executives. I felt both Richard Anderson and Jeff Robertson are personable and very approachable. During the luncheon, Richard Anderson told me that he is very willing to have a dialogue with FT members about the good, the bad and the ugly at Delta. I think we need to work with them to find the right timing and venue to do just that.

As far as on-going communication on FT, given everything that is going on with the NW/DL integration, both what we can see, and the behind the scenes work, I think there simply isn't enough time available right now to have that level of interactive discussion. I am not trying to make excuses, just stating what I see as reality. The point I was trying to get across is that there is a clear willingness and opportunity to have a future dialogue.

As far as Delta�s involvement in FlyerTalk, I would agree with WBurcham, it has certainly gotten better through the efforts of many employees that participate in both an official and unofficial capacity. It is perfect, no, but it is a step in the right direction, and I feel certain we will continue to see that level of interaction continue to increase in the future. I think it is important to positively acknowledge and continue to encourage others to do so.



+1 ^ As Bennos said, Kevin was acknowledged for the timely resolution of so many issues on behalf of the FlyerTalk members.

To answer your question, (and the many emails I have already gotten), yes, there will absolutely be another event. The June 2009 event was 3 days Thur-Sat. I feel certain we will see a significant increase in the number of people what want to attend the next event. Some of the venues will be constrained by the number that can attend, so it is likely that we will have to spread it out over even more days and repeat some of the venues, so that everyone will get a chance to participate. As I said before, we already discussing some new and really exciting elements for the next event that will certainly raise the bar.

As you can imagine, the focus at Delta right now is the integration and obtaining the single operating certificate, so we will most likely begin the planning for the next event, after the beginning of the calendar year. And yes, we will do our best to give everyone a heads-up well in advance around that proposed dates. Stay tuned.

I didn't mean to imply that you wanted to apply pressure, but I'm suggesting that many of us (especially from the NW Elite side where we got a rawer deal than existing SM members) should continue to put pressure on Robertson, and because your post suggested his hands-on involvement, Anderson.

It astonishes me that there has not been more customized DL communication to "welcome" NW members to the Delta family. It's like they assumed we'd bring our loyalty over with a reduction in perks. Perhaps your next RWT Do's theme could be "welcome to the family", with some education of each airlines's features, policies & traditions, especially the ones that are part of the New Delta.

I agree with your comments that it is important to positively acknowledge and continue to encourage Delta at all levels, and I understand you have relationships to keep good with DL execs, but I do believe some of us need to apply pressure on Robertson and Anderson for some givebacks.

I actually think this is an excellent idea. I am not sure we would need to wait for the next DO to do this either. As I said, I think the Delta/NW Execs are heads down on the integration at the moment, but it certainly would make sense to have something like this shortly after DL/NW officially become "one" airline. I have publically welcomed the NW forum members in this forum, but I think it would be great to have an airline focused event to do the same.

This concept may already be in the works, but if there is enough interest in pulling this together, I would be glad to help make something like that happen. Your thoughts?