Delta has been teasing that it would have some sort of “Basic Business” unbundled offering for a long time. We expected to see it at the airline’s last investor day, but that didn’t happen. Apparently the airline wasn’t ready. But now… it still hasn’t happened. But Delta has reorganized its fare brands in a way that sets the stage for an eventual Basic product in all cabins. That’s the only interesting bit of news in this whole shift.
I have received notes from several of you who find Delta’s new “Travel Experiences” structure to be confusing, but honestly, this isn’t much of a change at all. I think Delta is just making it more confusing than it needs to be.
On the surface, almost nothing has changed. The airline’s offerings are just being organized in a more consistent way across all cabins.
First, the airline has changed the names on its fare classes. It was:
- Basic Economy
- Main Cabin
- Comfort+
- Delta Premium Select
- First Class
- Delta One
Now, it is using the Delta One-styled naming convention to change everything to match:
- Delta Main (coach)
- Delta Comfort (extra legroom)
- Delta Premium Select (premium economy long-haul)
- Delta First (short-haul first class)
- Delta One (long-haul flat bed business class)
In case it wasn’t clear, all of these cabins are offered by Delta. You wouldn’t know this before, but now that it’s the first word in every cabin name, you can’t miss it. When it comes to codeshares, well, it uses the different cabins names for every airline that’s flying, so there is no false advertising here.
Please note that this new standard means you no longer have any + in your Comfort, so see if you notice a difference next time you fly. I’M KIDDING. Nothing onboard changes with any of this. I know, now I’m just trying to confuse you.
You will notice that Basic Economy is gone. That’s just because it has been folded into Delta Main. There are now three tiers of Delta Main available:
In short, Delta has taken Basic Economy and made it the bottom tier of Delta Main. The old Main Cabin is now the Classic tier of Delta Main. And the old fully refundable fares have now been converted into the Extra tier.
Right now, refundability is just about the only notable difference between Classic and Extra. Oh, sure, they have added some other sweeteners to make it feel more substantial. Instead of 5 SkyMiles per dollar, you earn 7… which on that $200 fare means you get an extra 400 SkyMiles. Just think of all the things you can do with that. I know, mind-blowing.
You also board earlier in Zone 5 instead of Zone 6 or 7… unless you have the credit card which boards in Zone 5 anyway. And on itineraries in the US and Canada, you get free same-day confirmed travel while in the Classic tier you only get same-day standby.
With that all being said, the booking flow isn’t really any different. If you look today on Delta.com, you’ll see this:
And if you look for travel beginning in October when this new brand rolls out, you’ll see this:
See, it’s really not a big change by any stretch. But what will be a big change is what is likely to happen in other cabins eventually.
As of now, there is no Basic tier in any of the other cabins, but there is Classic and there is Extra. The attributes are exactly the same as in Delta Main except that there is no priority boarding in any other cabin. None of this is particularly interesting or exciting.
What is interesting about this, however, is that it clearly sets the stage for a Basic tier to exist in every cabin, and that will be an enormous change when it finally happens.
This feels like just laying the groundwork for future change. Considering how many people have reached out to me to ask about what’s going on, it seems like Delta may have failed in its job to simplify initially. Eventually, this will not be an issue.
It really feels like someone in marketing just decided the reorganization and standardization was necessry for what comes next. It’s what is likely to come next that will be far more notable.
41 comments on “Basically, Delta’s New Classic Fare Brands are a Little Extra”
Translation, a distinction without a difference plus a few buzzwords to make it sound cooler than it really is.
CF,
I am curious how much they paid these morons to come up with this. I’m sorry but this is more confusing. I’m Platinum. If I book Main right now I can upgrade myself to Comfort+. After these changes can I still or do I have to book Main Extra first.
After Ed’s debacle last year I have been looking for an excuse to continue to fly other carriers (thanks to Ed I’m flying half Alaska/AA). Cranky, you’re the travel expert. You can digest these stupid changes more quickly than us common folk. Me, I just want to book a flight as quickly and easily as possible.
It’s really not that difficult
Angry Bob – Nothing has changed. At all. Just the names. The only thing about upgrades is that if you buy Extra, you get a tiebreaker over someone who bought Classic. But all the other rankings come ahead of this.
I’m honestly surprised at the reaction by so many of you to this. It’s barely even worth noticing. I find it to be a non-event.
But I think Angry Bob is pointing to something pretty significant, so when you say you’re “surprised by the reaction” I’m surprised that you’re surprised. In the example, Main Extra is $100 more than Main Classic so you are basically being told you have to pay $100 more to edge out other “equal” Medallions for the chance of an upgrade. It used to be that you just had to be Main rather than Basic (and I paid Main for the chance of the upgrade as a PM and million-miler and to be able to use my AMEX lounge access). By privileging Extra over Classic, Delta has found a way to further cheapen the value of loyalty. Gotta hand it to them.
I heard a rumor that if you book Delta Main Basic you won’t get ice with your drink, you have to book Delta Main Premium Plus Extra to get an ice cube.
Um, it would be the other way round: Main Basic gets mostly ice and little of the actual drink; Main Premium Plus Extra gets only enough ice to cool your drink without watering it down! :D
Delta, The new Frontier of the South!!
Whenever marketing teams get to run the show, more often than not chaos and questionable execution follow.
So true. And yet it does nothing to make planes run on time or do anything beneficial for customers.
Cranky hit the nail on the head that while this might be confusing short-term, it makes sense long term. DL is just trying to more clearly unbundle the seat with the other aspects of the ticket (refundability, bags, zones, sky pesos, etc.). This should theoretically let them be more targeted to their customer and hopefully generate more revenue because of it
Example: someone really tall may want the Delta Premium Select seat but won’t pay for it straight up. If you strip out some of the other “perks” that aren’t important to the customer, the lower buy-up price may make the tall customer re-consider and pull the trigger. Boom, Delta just generated some incremental revenue in that cabin that may have gone unsold (that’s for RM to decide)
What next, charging flyers for use of the jet bridge? I mean it’s a piece of infrastructure that needs to be maintained… right?
In your example, that incremental revenue was already there by simply paying for a seat assignment in the extra legroom section.
Maybe for an exit row in Main, yes. But it looks like Premium Select is 38″ pitch vs 34″ for Comfort+. Those extra 4″ might be a big deal to someone on a 10+ hr flight
Oh my mistake, I was thinking of Delta comfort. The confusion in this exchange is exact proof of their mishandling of this rebranding lol.
While this seems unnecessarily confusing, I do wonder how much of DL’s RASM premium is driven by its extensive segmentation of the market. On its earnings calls, every time they discuss that once you buy up, you never go back. Perhaps DL has best figured out how to find every individual’s top price to maximize the area under the demand curve?
Once you strip away the doubletalk, buzzwords and gobbledygook, it’s actually pretty clean.
Five distinct classes of service; in generic terms, economy, economy with extra legroom, premium economy (long haul only), business (domestic), business (long haul only).
Each class of service has three fare buckets (or at least this will be true eventually). Again in generic terms, basic (non-refundable, no changes, no seat, lower mileage accumulation, board last), regular (same day changes, seat assignments, full mileage, board not quite last) and, I dunno, extra (refundable, extra mileage, board not quite first, maybe even a checked bag, God forbid!)
That being said, this is a massive failure by communications, PR and marketing folks and whomever supervises program rollouts to the public. You shouldn’t need to turn to a blogger, even an extremely competent one like the Crankster, to obtain a meaningful understanding of a rollout that includes, frankly, very little actual changes.
@ Bill from DC,
This reminds me of a Flinstones movie from 1964 called “A man called Flinstone,” witch is a James Bond sort of spoof. In the scenes involving travel & aviation you would notice how each class of passengers were perceived & therefore treated. You are seeing something similar by Delta here, but at least the movie was playing it for comedy.
Taxonomy, thy name is Delta.
So really, if you spreadsheet it out, there are at least 12 fare options for domestic. In sales, confusion is ruinous. Now you can’t even directly fare shop since Basic is now bundled into Main. Now you feel you’re always having to upcharge to get to where you were in the first place. I can only see this as making people mad.
Delta? Pissing off previously loyal customers with changes harebrained enough that they stop being loyal? Can’t imagine such a thing…
To be fair, they’re still nowhere near American in that regard
Two years in a row! First screwing their most loyal flyers with the MQD crap and now this. I can’t wait to see how they will further mess with their loyal flyers next year. If Ed Bastian thinks that we are all sheep he hasn’t met this bull yet!
I know I’m just a crotchety old man who flies far less now than before I retired…
But I miss the simple days of Coach, Business and First.
They meant the same things across all airlines, with each carrier offering their own enhancements.
But hey, at least I can watch MAX onboard.
Oh… wait a minute…
I wonder when what is eventually coming up (unbundling business fares) how Delta will fare if UA and AA don’t follow – feels like in the competitive markets it would put those premium class travelers with brand loyalty potentially at risk.
For instance, from NYC internationally I often have to pay a slight fare (usually 5-10%) premium if I want to fly DL vs AA – I try not to fly UA at EWR since it’s not as convenient. However, if DL unbundles its Delta One Lounge access or some perks and makes it a 25-30% premium, no chance I would pay for that since at least IME the experience is not that much better. DL economy sure is much better than AA but the business product gap is very comparable. From joking about this with some of my peers, many would agree – if you take away the lounge access or make those business itineraries too costly, then if your product isn’t much better than the competition (which it simply isn’t) you will lose out. I’d assume a similar risk at LAX and potentially SEA once Alaska ramps up international ops.
If I’m an AA, I’d have no problem not chasing this potentially slightly extra revenue to recapture potentially valuable premium cabin market share by simply keeping those premium cabin rates as is.
This doesn’t feel any different than how European carriers, especially the LH Group of carriers has done their pricing tiers.
This is exactly how LH group is structured. Yet there it seems a bit more concise, logical, self explanatory.
Cranky,
We love your analysis, especially the fact that it is FREE! That being said, towards the end, “Delta may have failed in its job to simply initially” should possibly be “Delta may have failed in its job to simplify initially”…
So it appears to me that this all nets to a path toward
1. One “Brand” –> Delta
2. Five “Hard Products” –> Main, Comfort, Premium Select, First, One
3. Three “Experiences” –> Basic, Classic, Extra
1 x 5 x 3 = 15 segments!
While the communication and roll-out may have under-performed and caused too much confusion, long gone are the days of Henry Ford only offering Model T’s in black!
Both CF and earlier commenters rightfully give partial credit for Delta’s RASM performance to their segmentation strategies. Delta may indeed be pushing the limit on “Too much segmentation is bad, but too little segmentation is worse. See Southwest on “but too little segmentation is worse”.
This all nets to “natural segmentation evolution, but poor communication execution” and makes me again sense that Delta continues to gain hubris and lose humility as they “lead from the front” and likely spend too much time “looking at themselves in the mirror” and “listening to fanboy praise”.
Delta developed is market leadership thru both strong strategy/choices and strong tactics/execution and with regards to this rebranding the strategy/choices may be spot on but the tactics/execution created confusion rather than the intended clarity.
A late hit penalty: watch CEO blame it on outside 3rd party rather than taking responsiblity
Cranky,
Last year Delta’s kick-butt marketing team butchered the MQD rollout. Now this? What’s in the water in Atlanta?
The only thing I find objectionable is the use of the word Classic, that implies some old fashioned thing that’s out of date. And frankly I don’t expect extra to last long if the only perk is zone five (former Main 1) and more miles, though I guess it does add a brand to the refundable main cabin fare that was already on offer
Consider the use of the term “Classic” by the other big Atlanta-based company: Coca-Cola. It refers to the return original version of their product before they messed with it. The same works here; it’s the version of a ticket with the amenities we generally expect.
It just feels like pointless change to me. It’s not going to make me not fly Delta or make me fly them more either. Feels like a waste of time and energy.
You would have thought Delta did something drastic. I’m with you Cranky, a non-event. Everyone else b*tching up a storm has too much time on their hands.
Maybe I’m mistaken, but it seems to me that there’s not a whole lot of difference (at least in the seat and allocated space) between domestic first class and international premium economy. Since a big portion of these changes appear to be in name only, Delta could simply call the domestic first class/premium economy cabin “Delta Premium Select” across the board and reduce some of the confusion that occurs when “First Class” doesn’t really represent a company’s best offering. The good thing is that, as is the norm with most product names and political speeches, nothing is really defined or stated – its merely rhetoric.
But I also see CF’s point that this could set the stage for different tiers within each cabin. Delta’s domestic first class/international premium economy nomenclature could be replaced with names like Delta Premium “Large Front Seat” (with due homage to Spirit), Delta Premium “Plush Front Seat with added Bells and Whistles”, and Delta Premium “Really Plush Front Seat with almost as many Bells and Whistles as International Business Class”, – each with slightly different service levels and amenities. But I have to wonder if all of this won’t simply add more confusion. But isn’t that what a good marketing campaign is supposed to do? LOL
Looks like the UI is a candidate for r/a**h*ledesign/, In the Basic box we have, “Limited”, 5 red angry prohibition signs, “restrictions”, “restrictions again” again with what I am assuming is a mandatory check box acknowledging that your station in life is so low you are forced to accept these limitations and restrictions.
Reminds me of a Seinfeld joke…
“When I used to fly in coach, and the stewardess used to close the little curtain thing, and they kinda give you a look in coach like “Maybe if you had worked a little harder, I wouldn’t have to do this.”
This is Delta’s way of saying that without a stare.
Cranky, totally irrelevant and pedantic observation, BUT: all former Comfort+ seats say “Comfort+” on them, and not “Comfort.” I suspect it will take a very, very long time for this inconsistency to be eliminated. Do you think Delta cares? They seem to be quite focused on their brand strategy.
Nicolas – I can’t imagine Delta cares. It’ll just be that way until the cabin refresh time.
The issue here and the reason for the confusion is that the screenshots in this story are missing a step. Up until about a month ago, Delta broke out basic economy in the main search reaults, so you could clearly see at a glance what was basic and what was main. Now it’s hidden under Main, and you have to click to find out what you’re getting. American pulls the same trick, and it’s impossible to deny that it will absolutely confuse some travelers who don’t realize what they’re buying.
It’s funny. Within the past year Spirit and Frontier executed strategies to move away from an ala carte model. Now this post concludes Delta is looking to do the opposite.
Obviously the comparison between those airlines isn’t 1:1, but it goes to how similar businesses perceive opportunities in the market differently based on their current positions. Everything is about growth and the perception of a new edge!
I think Delta will revise this – it’s oversegmentation and it’s too confusing to the average consumer. They’re trying to address unmet needs that likely aren’t really there/significant. I have a multi-leg trip in October (EWR-SEA-BNA, etc) so decided to run through the booking exercise to see how this works. I really had to study what the differences were between the coach options. Then on the summary screen before selecting seats, I was presented with upgrade options. However, I couldn’t remember the details of what I had selected on the prior pages since the differences were so nuanced, so I had no idea what value was being presented. As 25+ year Medallion I had to study this in detail in order to get it, the average consumer won’t. We went through this oversegmentation problem at my old company years ago – overly complex brand architectures, consumer segmentation that went too far into driving against unmet needs that weren’t significant enough to build the business on. At one point our CMO commented that we were too focused on the consumer and to focus instead more on just running the business. Seems applicable here – the On Time Machine is not what it was.