Remember our old slogan “We love to fly and it shows!”? It really was more than an advertising jingle. Most of us who work here do love to travel…and then we like to talk about travel. That makes working on projects that include destination information fun for us.
Many of us especially enjoy theme travel—using a particular type of attraction or event such as golf, skiing, diving, or a pursuit of good food, wine, or even beer—to determine where we’d like to go. That was the thought behind the Getaway Ideas.
We think the idea has tons of potential (I, personally, think that a Castle Vacations page would make a fabulous page!), but I’d really like to know what you think. What do you want us to tell you about where you want to go?
Do you just want to know that we fly there and how much it will cost? Would you prefer to get a taste of the culture and attractions like you’ll find in Travel Getaways? Or do you like the idea that we can help you figure out cool places to go based on what it is you like to do, like we’re trying to do with Getaway Ideas? If so, what themes would you like to see there?
Let us know what you think…
Julie Palmer
Manager - Website Content
delta.com & self-service
September 5th, 2007 at 9:53 am
How about a sports getaway page? The possibilities are endless. For example, some friends and I were thinking about planning a trip where we try and hit 5 or 6 cities over the course of a week, and take in a baseball game in each city. The initial idea was to start in Miami, then go to Tampa, Atlanta, DC, New York, and Boston.
You could do a page with the NFL, SEC football, MLB, NBA, etc…
By the way, thanks for the blog. This is a great idea.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Today I learned a second new thing about Delta.com based upon the new blogs, I never realized while looking at the home page that these options existed. I absolutely love to be able to explore things to visit when traveling to a new place for the first time, I find myself going away from Delta to look at travel ideas, but now that I am aware I will find myself visiting Travel Getaways. Thank you for the continued education about the many offerings of Delta.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I love flying Delta eversince the day I had to flight with a terrible cold and the attendant kept refiling my tea. Your love *shows*
September 5th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
We travelled Delta from Edinburgh, Scotland to Orlando last Christmas day. We spent a couple of great weeks and really enjoyed ourselves. We were impressed by Delta ( we have flown with other major carriers before) but found Delta to be just a bit better. Well that was until I signed up for the Delta newsletter. Each time I received one I eagerly opened it to see if there were any special deals for us over here in the UK but every special offer was aimed at their US customers. To make matters worse we were looking to book to go back to the States for New Year this year but the direct flights from Edinburgh have been stopped.
Come on Delta how’s about something for your UK customers?
September 5th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
I have a comment about the skiing gateway. You need more maps showing your routes and where the airport is located in relation to the ski resort. Another problem: I am a major skier and travel out west annualy. The problem is that those convenient non-stops you guys have are frequently drastically more expensive than changing planes. If connecting is the cheapest option people have no reason to fly Delta over any other airline. If the non-stops were cheaper, people would be more attracted to Delta’s convenient services and take more advantage of the packages.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Delta should offer safari getaways since it is now serving Johannesburg and has partnered with Kenya Airways.
September 6th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I think this Destinations area has a completely off-base focus. A more important focus should be to improve your schedule to meet the needs of your most elite, regular, loyal and longterm fliers like me. I am a 20 year Delta elite FF customer and think you mostly do a very good job but the destination I need you to add is to put back your evening flights! I now sit in a lonely hotel room an extra night or fly on your competitors because you have so little service after 7 PM Eastern time anymore. Business travellers like me can no longer get home on Delta. So while it is wonderful to speculate on which exotic location you should add, please make a blog area for those of us whose home airports have become exotic locations after 7 PM. Delta has become a much better airline in the last couple years with more attention paid to departing on time, etc. but none of that matters if I have to fly on your competition just so I can get home the same day. Please restore evening flights West esp from CVG and ATL to my exotic location, Portland, Oregon.
September 6th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
The flight to Johannesburg was quite nice on Delta, however, the problem is the lack of coordination and appropriate partnering with other airlines. I am a seasoned So African traveler and the situation at the joburg airport these days is very chaotic. Two hours is not enough time to go through customs checks, collect your luggage, then run a ways to the domestic terminal uphill with your luggage. I choice to use the local Comair (BA) connection to Cape Town. I own a condo in Cape Town so it is my destination and not joburg. It would be in Delta’s best interest as the first American airlines to Africa and So Africa to provide information to your clients going to Africa or So Africa about flight connections, terminal transfers etc. It would also be a great idea if the African partner airline would dedicate a staff person to meet the Delta flight and give information to passengers.
I am hoping Delta will obtain landing priviledges to Cape Town in the future. It is an incredible city and in the top 10 international cities of the world. Delta needs to plan NOW for the 2010 World Cup and flights.
I do salute Delta for this bold step forward and flying to Africa…bravo!
September 6th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I agree that Jo’burg’s airport is chaotic. The time it takes to go through customs and walk to the other terminal can easily exceed 2-3 hours.
A direct flight from ATL-DKR-CPT or JFK-DKR-CPT would be awesome!
Perhaps Delta should create a website to allow travelers to vote on destinations they should add to their current destinations.
September 6th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Thanks for the great ideas, all of you. We’ll put them in the hopper, and see what we can come out with next.
We’re in the process (as I type this) of updating the information on the Ski Vacations page. With this update, we’ve taken small steps to point out the closest airport to the resorts, but I like your idea of a visual, Skymiler. We have some other design issues to address longer term, so we can try to bring that idea into the mix. I’ll also pass your comments along to my counterparts who are responsible for pricing, scheduling, etc.
geoffh, I definitely hear what you’re saying. I can promise you that we are consistently challenging each other to think more globally with customers like you in mind. One large step in that direction was the globalization of delta.com. Have you used the Country/Language selection tool in the header to select the UK as your country of preference? That will help provide you with the best delta.com experience based on your location. You’ll find that offers on the home page, including Airfare Deals, will be much more relevant to you.
Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to share your ideas with us. Keep those comments coming!
September 7th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Julie,
Where might a VFDF (Very Frequent Delta Flyer) make suggestions regarding the Delta web site? Some of the new changes are welcome while some of the old functionality has been removed. I’d like to comment to the correct location.
Thanks,
Ed
September 7th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Great question, Ed! We’ve recently added a new tool to the site that will help you help us by providing your suggestions or feedback.
Have you noticed the little plus sign floating in the lower right corner of your screen when you visit delta.com? That’s the site feedback tool. When you click on the icon, it launches a comment card that will allow you to rank the page or submit your comments by freeform text.
Comments are mapped to the page from which you launch the tool, so it’s most helpful to us when you use it on the page that’s most relevant to your suggestion.
September 8th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Thanks for the reply, Julie. I have actually posted under the delta.com category. It seems appropriate to make .com suggestions there. By the way, there is no feedback button on the particular page I have issue with - the seat selection page. But I do see it elsewhere and will take advantage of it. Thanks for replying.
Ed
September 11th, 2007 at 1:33 am
What would you like us to tell you about where you want to go?
What i want is not commonly done. I want Delta to tell me and others about all the missing facets of culture, traditions and ideas per destination presented, not shown by airlines in general.
For example, the world fascinates about Rio de Janeiro and its radiant Ipanema and Copacabana beaches, memories of past events in time such as Hotel Gloria there.
Often, the thoughts of Brazil is it is located in Africa, versus South America.
I call it geographic ignorance of the average citizen, blame the schools that lacked to re-enforce geography in education, blame the lazy student whom was not impressed to learn, or praise the airline that succeeds where others never follow.
Being that i had mentioned Rio de Janeiro, tell potential travelers why the world loves Rio and why the airlines do not truly charm the traveler to want to go there.
Tell me about the cerveja Antartica. Tell me about the skydiving off the hills of Sugar loaf mountain, tell me about the statue of Christ Redentor there, do not just show pictures, do something similiar to the old ways of how airlines had posters illustrating destinations and the imaginations that would follow.
Tell me to exit the hotels in Rio and entering a local sidewalk cafe,bar location to try some rice, bean, and meats.
Warn me to not drink pinga too much, cause that sugarcane alcohol is mighty strong and might need to know.
Tell me to try garapa, sugarcane drink.
Tell me about the excitements not normally shown as if i were to tune to the Travel channel via the Delta method to show me why i want to go there.
September 15th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
As I was making yet another reservation today, an idea occurred to me. It would save me all sorts of time if, when Delta emailed me my itinerary after purchase, there was an iCal appointment attached.
If there were, let’s say, a checkbox on the reservations page for ‘Email my itenerary as iCal appointment’, I could click once and have my entire trip put into my calendar. Easy!
Delta would be the first airline to do it, afaik.
Just my two cents.
September 16th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I agree with mplace. The ability to import itineraries into Apple’s iCal or Microsoft’s Outlook calendars would be very nice.
September 18th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I agree with ademir. The problem with majority of airlines/travel companies is that when they talk about their destinations they only talk about things you can do to spend money. But the truth is that money can’t often buy the best things that come with travelling.
Often the best way to find out about the best things at the particular destination is to contact locals that live there. Maybe using Delta employees that live in these destinations?
The other option would be to link Delta with a travel guide type of website . Or maybe promoting a particular travel guide. For example, offering a glimpse of a particular destination (provided by the travel guide) and the note that when you get this travel guide you can find more. I believe it would be to costly to set up a separate travel guide by Delta, but cooperating with a travel publisher could be the solution. The travel guide would benfit having additional ads, and Delta in return could be featured on their website/travel book. That would make customers happy. That would really diferenciate Delta among other arlines.
This also should be done for two types of travelers: high-end and budget. I’m a budget traveler, and often fly Delta a I find the prices competitive. So why not linking with two publishers targeting these two separate groups. Both of them I’m sure are quite big groups of Delta customers.
September 18th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I would like to see service increased to pre 1999 levels at ISP. By leaving only 2 flight to ATL my only choice is now Southwest. Please come back!!!
September 21st, 2007 at 7:02 pm
I wanted to check back in with you to follow up on some of the comments you’ve posted since my last posting.
ademir and Ania: As you can tell from my original posting, we are interested in telling you about the great places we fly. For years we’ve toyed with the “travel guide” idea…but it’s a tough nut to crack. A small step toward doing that is partnering with Barnes & Noble to make shopping for travel guides for your specific city much more convenient. You’ll see these links appearing in most cities within Travel Getaways starting in October.
Another thing you will see more of is Delta employee engagement in sharing travel tips. Zach Wallin just posted a blog article and photos about traveling in Oregon (and there will be more of those), and there’s always delta.com/siteseer for videos created by Delta employees as they travel the globe. I understand some new videos were posted there this week. And, although the challenge itself is over, you can still go to delta.com/challenge to watch the videos for the cities included in the SiteSeer Challenge
mplace and southerndoc: We hear you on the calendar synching. In this crazy Blackberry world, we know how important it is to keep all of your appointments in one place. A little bird told me that this one is definitely in the works, so keep checking back.
October 9th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I want a direct flight to Osaka, Japan. Right now the only option is code share with Korean Air and that is one VERY LONG FLIGHT!
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
How about DUS-JFK? This part of Gemany is crying for a direct NY connection. Not everyone enjoys the trip FRA, even when booked with DL. I won’t spout off numbers about Fortune 500 companies, etc. Trust me there is money to be made here. At the moment the only DUS-JFK services are with LTU and LH’s all biz flights using A319s. DL seems to be doing well on the DUS-ATL flight and I would bet they could do well using one of their upgraded 757s.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Anywhere in Australia or New Zealand from Hawaii or West Coast. Of course Delta is going to have to do better the 767-400ERs from LA or SF to Sydney, but very possible from Hawaii.
Anyone know of a codeshare partner going to Sydney from the W. Coast or Hawaii??
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:25 pm
And what´s going on with Latin America ?. I read in a biz newspaper that Delta is planning to open new routes to Colombia and Chile. I´d like to have non-stop flights to Medellin and a better aircraft to Bogota (the B757 is beautiful in the exterior. In the interior, seats are just wider that those of a public bus). And when is Delta going to open flights to Sydney? From Atlanta? From Los Angeles?. I´m waiting for them!.
December 12th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I want to be able to purchase a coupon book for 6 roundtrips between ATL-MIA, in either direction. The coupons would be good for one year from date of purchase and the cost would be 6 x .
Then I would be able to budget seeing my daughter 6 times a year. You could require that I book using coupon within 3 weeks of travel or even longer, but you’d save me the constant juggling of dates and times so many times a year.
December 12th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Grr…I used greater than and less than signs in previous post, so the info got “html’d” out.
The cost of the coupon book would be 6 times the annual average or mean cost of the route.
BTW, I’m good for 2 coupon books each year. One set for ATL-MIA, the other for ATL-DCA.
Tell the marketing peeps to target parents of college kids.
December 26th, 2007 at 12:59 am
How about non-stop flights between NY and Liberia, Costa Rica. That area is growing by leaps and bounds and deserves direct service.