Bob actually comes to Delta from Target where he most recently ran Target.com. Having that big-retailer experience gives Delta a fresh set of eyes to help get things in order at the airline. But Bob isn’t just running Delta.com. He’s in charge of other digital channels like Facebook, mobile, kiosks, inflight entertainment content, wireless internet, and yes, Sky magazine (it’s only a matter of time before it goes digital in some form).

The homepage redesign (which I positively reviewed here) was just the start, but it was an important start. What you see on the homepage is going to be the base for design for other channels.

Bob said one of the biggest issues out there is design-related. All the different channels look different and that’s because, as Bob said, they were all designed by different groups. No more; it’s going to be harmonized so that Delta customers will be able to know where things are and how to find them much easier.

But that’s only part of it, and there are still some defects from the merger integration that they’re still working through. Most of those major ones have been completed, and they can start turning their efforts to more work on enhancements.

I brought up the award calendar and he nodded his head. The team is well aware that people are not happy with it, and some improvements are already there. But more is coming, he promises. Then he started talking about things that I find more exciting.

I brought up the issue of how tickets are booked and how poorly information is laid out. He agreed, and said that “when you’re booking, we want to tell you what you’re buying.” That will include things like internet and TV. But it’s also simple things like making the seat map more descriptive. “There’s no reason each seat should show up as a square.” You should be able to see what you’re getting.

It’s that kind of thinking that can make setting expectations much easier. That’s really important for an airline that seems to have a different BusinessElite seat on every other airplane.

We also talked about the new Facebook booking channel. (“A lot of our customers are on Facebook, it’s the most visited site on inflight wifi, so we need to be there.”) I highly doubt anyone is going to use that thing, and Bob realizes that it’s not going to be “the” place where people go to book. They really like that new functionality, however, for its flexibility. For example, if Delta’s people update the Delta Facebook status to show that a fare sale has launched, they can embed the booking engine right there for people to use. They haven’t fully explored what it can do, but they’re excited to try it out. Ok, I can see how that might be interesting, but I’m still not convinced it’s going to matter.

Interestingly, Bob isn’t really focusing on Twitter at this point. That’s a focus for customer service and communication, but it’s not really an eCommerce effort now. The team, which Bob explained is quite lean in numbers compared to his old Target digs, is focusing on Facebook for now.

Then it was on to wifi. General feedback, outside of Virgin America, is that very few people are using it and it’s going to take some time for it to build. Bob sounded no differenet. He explained that the take rates are increasing but they aren’t where they want them to be just yet. Still, wifi is valuable for the airline.

He believes that now that Delta has nearly fully outfitted the fleet, it is a customer expectation and it’s a differentiator. They need to do more experimenting with pricepoints and packaging (which is ultimately controlled by AirCell, the wifi provider), but he’s confident this will be important. It’s already proven to have great value from a customer perspective, something I’ll discuss later this week.

With all of these things on the table, I asked the inevitable question that makes many cringe. How are they going to monetize this? Would they look at advertising sales and things like that? The answer might shock you.

He said that while they will look at some additional opportunites to make money, much of this “could just be a differentiator.” There he goes again on building the brand as different from others. That’s the kind of thing I like to hear, and I’m eagerly awaiting some of the changes in the next year to see if it ends up being as good as it sounds.

A Look at John Tague, New President of United Airlines – BNET
John Tague is now president of United, but will that mean any changes are on the way?

United Launches Intra-Europe Flight – BNET
United is going into the London to Brussels market. Why the heck are they doing that?

How Air Travel Can Be Made Less Annoying – New York Times (Room For Debate)
The title says it all. The asked four of us what could make air travel less annoying, and I wrote about setting expectations.

Kayak Asks Microsoft’s Bing Travel to Stop Being a Copycat – BNET
Kayak thinks Bing is copying it. Bing says no. Fun fight ensues.

Booking the Hot Seat on Airlines – Chicago Tribune RedEye
RedEye writes about those who don’t just look at price and schedule when they fly. I was happy to participate in this one.

Who Will Fill Delta’s Space at Chicago/O’Hare? – BNET
Delta is leaving its old gates at O’Hare to join Northwest in November. Who will take those over?

Why Does Southwest Want to Buy Frontier? – BNET
Southwest is bidding for Frontier, but why exactly do they want to do that?

Frequent Flyer Friday #2 – Musings of the Global Traveller
The Global Traveller interviews me about my flying habits.

I could explain BA’s value calculator in more detail, but why not just show you? Here’s a screenshot:

As you can see, the point here is to show you how much more it might cost to fly the other airlines and why you should include this consideration when you make your purchase decision. For those people who actually see the value calculator, this is great, but how many will actually get to that point?

Sure, there’s a big ad for it on the homepage, but it’s not directly in the booking path so plenty of people will miss it. And of course, there are the masses who don’t book directly at BA.com that won’t see this at all. So yes, it’s a good and important start, but there’s more that can be done.

It’s funny because Southwest finds itself in a similar position. It is competing against many other carriers in the US who charge you extra for nearly everything, just as you see here. It’s quite odd to think that you replace BA with Southwest and Ryanair with United or American for this to work.

But Southwest has something that BA doesn’t. The vast majority of Southwest travelers book at Southwest.com, so they have more eyeballs as a percent of total traffic that could see this. Nearly everyone who flies in a Southwest market knows to go check Southwest.com first and then go elsewhere.

But what if Southwest actually turned this on its head and started trying to attract even more traffic to its site? Southwest should start an online travel agent.

It sounds crazy, I know, but think about it. You can’t get Southwest fares on any other consumer site, so you have to go to at least two sites if you’re looking to compare. Now what if Southwest built an online travel agent that showed you all the other airlines side-by-side with their own fares?

This would be an instant hit, because Southwest could become the only single site where a traveler could compare all airlines. Now, other airlines might pull out, but Southwest could potentially look to backfill other airline flights from an established online travel agent. It would make it harder for an airline to pull out of a site that already delivers it substantial traffic.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Southwest could build a better online travel agent interface that goes to their advantage. They could incorporate all the fee information into the final display price so that they can accurately display the total cost to the customer.

In the past, Southwest may not have wanted to do this, because they had an aura of having low fares when in fact they often weren’t the lowest around. But now if you include fees, they probably look lower much of the time. This would be to their great advantage.

The best part for Southwest? If someone decides to book on another carrier through the site, Southwest can still make some money off it in the form of a commission. This can raise revenue for the airline, bring more people directly to its site, and provide an interface that will be of instant interest to much of the US. And yes, it will highlight the true cost of traveling, something that should greatly benefit Southwest versus just a fare comparison.

You guys listening over there in Dallas?

Continental’s May Numbers Prove April’s Improvement Wasn’t a Trend
May numbers are out for Continental and they don’t look so hot. No surprise, of course, but still not fun to watch.

Just How Well Did Biofuels Perform in the Air?
Air New Zealand released results of its biofuel test in January, and the results are incredibly impressive.

Online Travel Agents Permanently Drop Booking Fees
Those temporary online travel agent booking fees have been made permanent.

US Airways May Revenue Looks a Lot Like Continental’s
US Airways released its May unit revenue numbers and the results aren’t pretty. No surprises, just not pretty.

Indianapolis Airport Facing Revenue Shortfall
Indianapolis built a new terminal last year, and now with traffic falling, the airport is facing a budget crunch.

Change Happens Slowly at American, Other Large Organizations
Here’s a fun example using American’s website design showing how hard it can be to effect change at a big company.

We were looking at a simple one way flight in June that was going to cost us just shy of $98. I had two different confirmation numbers on unused tickets that I wanted to apply to cover the total cost of the ticket. Of course, Southwest lets you do this online, and I’ve always found that they’ve made this easier than anyone else. Not this time.

One of the credits had about $90 from one ticket and it expires in September. The other one had about $115 and expires next April. Naturally, I wanted to use up all the funds that expire in September and pull the remaining $8 or so out of the one that wouldn’t expire for a year. But when I went online, it didn’t let me. I put the $90 credit in first and that worked. But then when I went in to put the other confirmation #, it then pulled all the credit from the newer one and wouldn’t let me use the one that expire soon.

I tried it a few different ways, so I called Southwest for help. They weren’t very helpful. It’s not that they didn’t try, but the system apparently has some screwy logic that wouldn’t let them help me. Here’s how it works, according to the reservation agents I spoke with.

The $90 credit that expires in September is a partial credit. It used to be around $200, but we had used the balance for another set of flights previously. So the system views that as a partial credit which is a lower class of credit in the hierarchy. The $115 credit was actually two credits. There was one full ticket intact for $111 and then another $3 or $4 as a partial credit from a second ticket on the same itinerary. The full ticket is a higher class of credit, for some reason. Confused? Me too. I just wanted to use my f*&(ing credits.

Here’s the bottom line. The system will force you to use full credits that are on a ticket before you can use partial credits. So I had a choice. I could either pull the full amount out of the $111 or I could combine the $90 credit with the $3 credit and pay the rest on my credit card. I opted for the latter because I didn’t want to take a chance that we wouldn’t use that credit before it expired. Yes, it only cost me $4 or $5 on my credit card, but that’s not the point.

Clearly, this is a very bad setup. Southwest should let you choose which credits you want to apply instead of forcing some arbitrary logic that makes no sense for the customer.

They say it’s “industry-leading,” and that may be the case in Canada, but it’s pretty similar to most of the ones that have come and gone in the US over the years. That being said, Air Canada’s fare structure makes it even harder to use than most. If you buy a ticket on AirCanada.com (Canadian version only), you have 24 hours to find a lower fare elsewhere. If you find it, you report it online and get a $50 credit plus the difference in fare. One catch. That lower fare has to be within the same fare bucket.

You’ll remember that Air Canada has a branded fare bucket approach (that I love). Tango fares are the cheapest and come with a certain set of benefits, and it moves up from there to different buckets with different benefits. So if you bought a “Latitude” fare, you would have to find another Latitude fare for cheaper somewhere else. The only problem is that I don’t know of another website that breaks down Air Canada’s fares that way. So good luck.

You could always check with a travel agent to see if there’s a lower fare around, but that’s probably the only place you could do it across all fare buckets. (And who is going to do that, anyway?) I seem to remember reading that a lot of people upsell to higher fare classes, so this may be a nice marketing message, but I’d imagine that few people will actually be able to take advantage of it. That will just confuse and annoy people, and that’s not a great way to do business.

I hope they’ve got more up their sleeve than this.

JetBlue Challenges Southwest at BWI
The focus is on Boston and Southwest and JetBlue start throwing down with new flights to new destinations.

Swine Flu May Present Third Major Hurdle for Airlines
If it’s not fuel or a poor economy, it’s something else. This time it’s swine flu, and though we don’t know the impact yet, it’s already being felt around the airline industry.

News from the Aviation & Environment Summit 2009
A month ago, the Aviation & Environment Summit was held in Geneva. See a recap here.

Why Would Delta Reintroduce Its Online Booking Bonus?
Delta has brought back the online booking bonus for a limited time. Now the question is . . . why?

United Enters Pittsburgh – West Coast Markets
United announced this week was starting long haul from Pittsburgh to the West Coast. This is an odd move that I’ve yet to figure out.

Continental and US Airways Report Steep Revenue Declines
March revenue reports are coming out and the news is very bad. Revenues are way down, as predicted.

International Traffic Causes Steep Load Factor Drops
March traffic reports are starting to com out as well, and the load factor drops aren’t pretty. Digging in, however, we can see that the international side is really hurting things.

Orbitz Follows Rivals, Drops Booking Fees with a Twist
Orbitz has finally followed the others and dropped booking fees, but there is a very important twist on how they did it.

Alaska Challenges Allegiant with Bellingham – Las Vegas Flights
Looks like Alaska wants to pick a fight with Allegiant. Will it work? I’m not so convinced.

March Airline Traffic Numbers
The full March traffic numbers are out, and I’ve got my monthly rundown. How do you spell “ugly”? See inside.

After Priceline did this ages ago, Expedia was the first to follow and drop fees. I think it’s safe to assume that this is a competitive move to try to shift more share from its competitors. Travelocity soon followed, apparently afraid it would lose too much share.

But Orbitz has yet to match. Will they hold out? Orbitz has done a lot to try to differentiate itself from other sites with its TLC and Price Assurance programs, but now the latter is being copied as well. Travelocity said it will also refund your money if someone books the same trip as you for less, but they will only do it for vacation packages. Not to be outdone, Priceline said it will do the same for both individual flight itineraries and vacation packages. Confused yet?

I just have to wonder if this move makes sense at all. You would think that the fee-sensitive travelers had stopped booking with online travel agent sites long ago and now go to the airline sites. Are they going to come back now? I doubt it. Of course, as I mentioned, it’s probably just an effort to bring people over from other online travel agents, like Priceline. Since Priceline stopped charging fees, they have attracted a greater share of the audience. Expedia must now think it’s significant to do something about it. And maybe Orbitz disagrees. Time will tell, though I think it’s more likely that they’re just preparing their response as I write this.

Mark over at Upgrade: Travel Better thinks this “temporary” fee cut may become permanent, and he very well may be right. Once you get into these competitive spirals, it’s hard to get out, even if it ends up not working out well for the bottom line.