In keeping up with the latest styles for shopping this holiday season, we’re proud to introduce the newest changes to delta.com. We’ve improved the look and functionality of delta.com’s booking experience to make it easier to find the flights you want, at the price you want and when you want them.
Specifically, we:
- Redesigned the search results so it’s easier to compare Economy, Refundable Economy and First/Business Class tickets
- Improved the ability to modify, sort and filter search results so you can better select tickets based on your needs
- Made it so pertinent information will be retained as you click around the site, and a summary of flights chosen will display throughout the booking process
- Added a comprehensive breakdown of ticket taxes, fees and fares; plus, you’ll be notified when inventory is getting low at the current price
- Increased the amount of flights returned during the search process, for access to more connection options and more choices
More improvements are on the way in early 2011 as we implement many of these same enhancements to the Award Ticket booking process.
Book a trip now and try out our new look!
Have you tried the new features? Tell us what you think! What other improvements would you like to see?
Cheryl B.
Product Manager
delta.com and Self Service
November 30th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Is there a way to get a receipt to print on a single page?
November 30th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Just tried it. It looks very nice and has some good features.
However, I just tried using it to book a MSN–SIN trip for 1/1/11–1/14/11. Selecting “price” only returned flights that totaled 42 hours or more in duration. Selecting “schedule” returned the expected flights that take 24 hours or so plus the longer ones. However, choosing schedule does not reveal pricing along the way. It would be very helpful to either have the old returns back when searching for “price” that include the reasonable connections (even if higher priced) or have pricing displayed when “schedule” is chosen. With the current system (for this one trip anyhow), the information returned is not very useful as I cannot book without knowing cost and waiting until selecting outbound and return to find pricing and then repeating for multiple combinations simply takes too long.
If the suggested changes above cannot be implemented, can we be given the choice of using the old system rather than the new one since it returned more appropriate options.
Thanks.
November 30th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
While change is certainly exciting I wish you would pick a few of us who use the site several times a week and ask us what we think before you make the changes live.
I would say this makes flight search results easier to see since the fare is now HUGE, but that means it takes up more space so its harder to scan down the list of fares and choose from the lowest prices that you want.
You have to click on a link to show you the aircraft type instead of it just showing it.
If you want to see the seat map you click on the seat map link, a pop up box appears and then you have to click again to actually get the seat map.
You have a lot of ways to sort your results which is great but for example, choose by aircraft type which is awesome. But, it sorts the results but you can’t see the aircraft type without clicking on every single flight.
From a navigation perspective rather than have a ‘Sort by’ pop up menu it would be better if you had those options and links across the top of the search results. The pop up menu is a ;click, choose, click;, and if it was the other way it would be just one click.
There should also be a ‘start over’ button at the top of the results as well as at the bottom.
November 30th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
These are good improvements, but I really wish it was easier to see the aircraft. The equipment actually plays pretty heavily in my decision-making, and having to click or hover and wait really slows things down. I don’t think showing the equipment type would take up much more room than the ‘aircraft’ text already does. For me, the interface just got worse because of this.
December 1st, 2010 at 12:20 am
The “add trip to calendar” function under ‘Trip Details” no longer works, at least for Google Calendar. Please fix ! I use this function often, to add my itineraries to my calendar, so that I can synch them to my android phone.
December 1st, 2010 at 12:22 am
Whoever designed the “NEW” Delta website apparently doesn’t use it. The “new” look requires over twice the vertical space per flight selection, and to those who use a notebook for much of their air travel bookings etc., this is a significant step back. I’m not surprised, as much of Delta’s changes to date are poorly conceived and executed.
Delta’s support and services have declined since the merger and if I could move my miles and status to another airline, I’d do it in a nanosecond.
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:59 am
Please show aircraft type. The difference in travel experience is huge when a given trip might involve a long-haul flight with a 777 200LR on one routing, a 747 on another routing, and a 767 on another. These are totally different products. At least until all of your international business class aircraft have lie flat beds, it would be very helpful to have aircraft information displayed. Thanks.
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:01 am
Please show aircraft type. The difference in travel experience is huge when a given trip might involve a long-haul flight with a 777 200LR on one routing, a 747 on another routing, and a 767 on another. These are totally different products. At least until all of your international business class aircraft have lie flat beds, it would be very helpful to have aircraft information displayed.
By the way, I don’t think many of us care about the break down of ticket cost, taxes, and fees. That may matter to Delta but, to your customers, what matters is the total price we pay. You could save some space by eliminating that break down from the initial display.
Thanks.
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:05 pm
I agree with TheSkeptic. You can only see 3 flights on the screen without scrolling. I suggest you do real-world testing with frequent travelers before rolling out these disasters.
delta.com seems to get worse with every re-design.
Keep it simple and functional, like the old nwa.com.
December 2nd, 2010 at 5:04 pm
The “New Look” is sooooo slow and obtrusive. Obviously the designer is not a user. Even flight status which used to be instant is VERY poor and 1/2 the time it voids out. Further, it will not give details on a delayed flight. Further you have to extra click to select a city/airport whereas the old site would take 1 click almost regardless of how you misspelled the city. While I am at it, the onboard service is now erratic. Some attendants are trying to be like SW Air with jokes and light hearted comments and others have moved from neutral to agitated and even surly. Flying quite often, it has become a burden to fly and even a pain. Changing a seat on a 75% full plane is a hair raising event and changing a reservation is more expensive than throwing the ticket away and just purchasing a new one. It used to be “Delta is ready when you are”, but it is now “Delta is ready to aggravate you in many ways”.
December 2nd, 2010 at 5:06 pm
As a follow on seeing my comment and time of entry — it was only 5:04 in Labrador or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. What gives ? DELTA, please clean up your act !!
December 3rd, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Filtering by connection city is a great new feature.
I agree with the other commenters though that the new layout is really hard to use. If I use chrome I only see about 2 and a half flights without scrolling. On other airlines websites I can usually see 8 or 10 and easily compare prices. On the new delta page you have to scroll up and down to see the options while trying to remember the price, time, etc. It’s really hard to use this new site. I hope you go back to the old design, but keep the new feature where you can filter by connection city.
December 3rd, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Can you please find someone who worked on the NWA site, they can help. This change is just another example of Delta being harder to do business with. Please get your user community involved, the changes being made without input and real world testing are driving customers away. I booked a complex trip on the site today and was forced to do it as four separate one way trips to be able to see all the flight choices. I booked two other trips on a competing airline due to the frustration.
December 4th, 2010 at 2:12 am
Regardless of what people say, this website is a HUGE improvement over the old one. Items are easier to find and it is very simple. As numerous others have stated, just list the aircraft type instead of having to click a button to find out. Also, have the seat map load maybe in the actual flight selection as opposed to having it in a pop-up box. I noticed widgets added to the award booking process to explain in-flight amenities… please put those on the revenue booking page as well. Passengers want to know what products they will be offered, and this is the easiest way to do it.
Keep up the good work web team!
December 4th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
I agree with everything the other commenters have said. I wish that Delta would ask the users of the web site before they put out a re-design. I fly a lot and use both Delta and AA. The AA web site is so much easier to use than Delta. I don’t understand why Delta thinks there is value in the distinction between “price” vs. “schedule” searches. To get a schedule without a price does nothing. The price should be displayed regardless of how you search. Also, the two searches don’t use the same search criteria. For example if you put in “morning” departure for schedule search, you only get non-stop flights; you have to put in a departure time to get all the potential flights, but then you have to look at each flight to see what price it is. I also agree that the rows for each flight are way too large and you have to scroll too much. There’s tons of unnecessary white space. I pretty much avoid using the Delta web site to search for flights. I go to Expedia or Orbitz and find the flights because it’s easier. If these are the “improvements” that will be made to the award ticket web site, they should stop right now. It will be easier to call and talk to an agent.
December 4th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
I also agree with the comments above.
I like the fact you can filter by connecting city, price and upgrade status! (The upgrade status is really cool!)
I don’t like the fact that Aircraft and Seats are hidden. As someone above indicates, the aircraft is a huge decision factor for me as well. Also, when making last minute trips, so are seats. Most of my flights are connecting flights, not direct. So, I have to hit seats, then the flight I want to look at seats on. Further, once you select a flight’s seat map, the previous box disappears. These changes add many extra steps for evaluating flights — I don’t like it AT ALL.
The red eye icon is cute.
I don’t like that it now takes up twice as much space to display the same flight information. The new format isn’t very efficient. It focuses more on fare class and price, and the rest of the information kind of gets lost. Price is equally as important as flight times and connection cities/times.
I don’t like that you got rid of the sorting columns. I could click the top of the column I wanted to sort by (say, departure time, flight duration, price etc). How, you have to go to a dropdown box. I don’t like this as much, it’s a step backwards.
In all, these improvements, and the ones made a month or so ago with the account information just come across as window dressing to “make it different” instead of making groundbreaking changes. Give me NWA.COM, years later, it still blows Delta.com out of the water. It’s horrible that long after the merger Delta still can’t get this right. You should have stuck with the NWA.COM platform, you would have been much better off.
What a complete disconnect from what the customers want and need. This is a step backwards.
December 4th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
Agree with all of the above; it’s as if Delta designers threw all the pieces up in the air (get it?) and let them fall on the page. I find it very frustrating to have to de-select all the connections so I can get a non-stop flight. Why isn’t that able to be MY default option, not Delta’s? And the images are just huge; who wants to scroll through all that mess? The former site was better, not perfect, just better. Delta, did you ever hear of user groups? Or beta testing? Use real people, the travelers who routinely (that’s the operative word) choose Delta. For me, I fly Delta almost exclusively for personal travel coast-to-coast. Or at least I have. As someone mentioned, if I could move my million miles, I would in a New York minute.
December 5th, 2010 at 12:18 am
DL has been promising to fix its dysfunctional revenue and award booking tools for years. Meanwhile, DL spends millions on SkyPriority, leather seat covers, and expensive advertising campaigns (first “Best In Class” and now “Keep Climbing” ?)
Why don’t you do your customers a favor and put your resources and efforts towards fixing your very, very inadequate IT issues?
New Global Airlline? Perhaps, but with the CRM and IT of Cubana Airlines, or perhaps Bangladesh Biman.
Quite the empty promises and happy talk, and deliver something that actually works.
December 5th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I agree with Badger_Prof. Bring back other pricing on the results page when searching by price only. Often times I’ll choose a more expensive flight if it makes sense for my schedule, but with the new site, I need to select on outbound AND return flight before I get to see the price. HUGE waste of time.
Either fix this or let us choose the old site to work with please.
Thanks.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Thanks to everyone for your comments. Your feedback is appreciated as we work to improve the site.
Sheri- Glad you like the new filter options.
benstephens and Badger_Prof- You’re right, Aircraft type is an important feature, we’ll take your comments into consideration regarding bringing the aircraft type to the forefront without an extra click.
Additional site enhancements are on the way.
December 6th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
You are still having problems with changing skymiles booked award flights. When attempting to change a flight the system kept bringing up the wrong filght but gave options for the correct flight and then gave me an error message. VEry frustrating, especialy when your customer service personnel said, “yes we just upgraded our system and it isn’t working very well”. How about some QA on these upgrades?
December 6th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
I have to agree. This website seems to be a step in the wrong direction. If you are looking for the best price it works fine. If you travel on a tight schedule or wish to book in a certain fare class it is frustrating. If you choose a special fare class and then sort by schedule, the fare class selection is lost. If more than one page of flights are returned, the sorting function wont cover all pages. The site involves too much scrolling, it should show equipment type and it should be easier to see seat charts. I spend alot of time on the site and as a frequent flyer, it seems ALL things important to me are either missing or buried in menus. I live between two major cities and routinely fly from both. The search engine randomly switches between these two cities if I hit the back button or change search criteria. If you live in a city served mainly by commuter jets, you can no longer book first class travel with this site, it returns no flights available. Please listen to your frequent fliers. It seems in an effort to attract more vacation travelers flying on 6 month advance purchase LUT tickets, you have made it unusable for those of us flying last minute paying premium fares (you know, your bread and butter passengers)
December 7th, 2010 at 9:34 am
I would like to put in another vote for making the aircraft type immediately visible and less clicks to view the seat map. Its all about the aircraft type.
Also, the price font is way too large…if it must be large make the “total” price after taxes large. And it is truly annoying scrolling down to see all my LGA-ATL flight options where as in the past they were all right there.
When, is Delta going to offer a “search by price AND schedule”?? This cannot be difficult to do. Otherwise we are blindly clicking on flight segments without knowing the price until the very end..this is affecting multi-city ticketing as well….as well as multi-city award searches.
And of course PLEASE fix the award calendar engine…this cannot be stressed enough..it is still completely broken and has no functionality ( pricing out partners like KE, comprehensive mileage awards charts with partners, etc, etc) even after your website enhancements
December 7th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I really dislike the new design. You no longer show all flights by default. When choosing your new schedule option (the only way I can find to show all flights), the price is not displayed until the final stage. This is deceiving as there may be less expensive flights at different times. Your website lost functionality in this respect and now has me using Kayak as this is accomplished in one easy search.
Additionally, I must now click a link twice to view: Aircraft, and Seat Maps. My profession is to streamline content of websites and I never advise clients that it is better to require a user to click multiple links for information. Website lost functinality in this respect too and frustrates users. For me to use your website alone to book a flight to my satisfaction, the transaction time has increased. This will probably just push me to another booking channel.
December 8th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Apparently no one at Delta actually uses the Delta Website.
If Delta doesn’t have competent product (web page) testers (which is clearly the case), perhaps the suggestions I’ve seen on this blog should be taken seriously- that being “Ask Delta Customers For Input”, but I suspect there should be a change in Delta’s Website Management first.
Clearly the “New Design/Look” was the product of people that are not in the “Real World”. The new look is a complete disaster. Try to use the Delta Website on a “typical” notebook. I can see only two or three flights now and must scroll up and down endlessly. Booking a trip takes much more time and forces a traveler to restart several pages that I previously used as a “home” page.
Fix the mess you’ve made or find people that are able to create proper website.
December 10th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
late to chime in, but I strongly agree with most of the previous comments
> PLEASE give the experienced regular user community a chance to “beta test” massive updates like this, and PLEASE allow time in the development and deployment schedule for incorporating their feedback!!!
aircraft type should be displayed directly in search results (it appears when hovering on the flight number, but that’s still a nuisance)
segment mileage should be displayed when hovering on the flight number
seat map should be linked to flight number displays
default search results should be sorted by departure time, NOT total travel time
December 10th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Great updates…I like it! One of the things I wonder about when booking flights is whether or not certain features will be available, mainly AVOD on the domestic 757s & 737-800s. I learned a while ago how to tell what 757s would have AVOD based on the seat maps, but the 738s seem to be hit or miss…now there’s less of a question!
I agree about displaying airplane types when booking. Maybe you could have it so if you hover over it, it displays? The red-eye icon is also nice & filters out what flights to avoid if you don’t like them. I totally missed the sort by hub feature…I’ll have to play with that next!
Are you able to list IFE amenities for shorter flights as well as longer ones? I know you don’t get a whole lot of use out of the AVOD on a flight such as ATL-MCO, but the live TV & Airshow maps are nice even for a flight that’s an hour or so.
December 11th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
to me the new booking engine is somewhat improved over the old one. however, i’m always most interested in what the total cost of my ticket will be…and that number is itty bitty compared to the fare price. PLEASE make the total cost the LARGE number. it seems deceiving to me to do it the way you are doing it now…
December 12th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
+1 on showing aircraft type
+1 on getting to “show seats” with one click
+1 on showing the cheapest total price available at each leg when sorting by schedule
Also, on another point, in my itineraries section, I’d love to be able to see First Class seats on the seatmaps of flights I’ve already booked in coach (just as the seatmaps work when booking). It would give me a feel for the upgrade opportunities on flights I’ve already purchased.
December 12th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
BTW, for the good,
* It does look nice
* I love the icons that show the services on each flight
* I don’t mind that the rows take up a bit more room. I liked it before as well, but this is fine. Don’t you think, though, that will all this space, we could maybe just show details for all the flights without requiring tab-openings and layer pop-ups?
* I appreciate some of the layover options.
Oh, one more note, I miss being able to click the number of SkyMiles in my account on every page to be taken to the “Manage my Account” area. It takes several clicks now, when it would be easy enough to just make the SkyMiles tally an active link again.
December 15th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
I have made my trip bookings and now I’m not able to view my itenarary and check ins. Its been almost 3 weeks, I get the same error message 999. I contacted customer service and they said it should be resolved in next 24 hrs. Even this has not helped.
I have tried all the options for getting my itenarary. It seems the new change is not working for me atleast.
March 21st, 2011 at 4:26 pm
LOVE the site changes — appreciate the streamlined approach…. only issue I have is the ‘bait and switch’ approach during booking. I purchased three tickets today on the site and during the process, was informed the initial rate was no longer available. Each time the additional fee was $10. If DAL needs more revenue, why not take the AirTran approach and charge to select a seat? I took the time to call delta.com support and reached an indifferent CSR stating someone else must have booked at the lower rate, resulting in the additional $10 fare hike. Now… not sure how many SkyMiles fliers are traveling this Wed from ATL to White Plains that managed to ‘out buy’ me within the 15 seconds it took me to purchase my flight, but…. suggest you look at the site logic and make sure someone didn’t mess it up…
April 7th, 2011 at 11:51 am
Would you please adjust fares out of Minneapolis and Rochester so people in SE Minnesota aren’t paying such a premium compared to other cities in the US? Just because Delta (and Northwest, when they were in business) have the monopoly, doesn’t mean we should be penalized and subsidize other cities. How about making us comparable to Milwaukee?