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Archive for December, 2012


A New Year, a Better Travel Experience

Published December 28th, 2012 in delta.com | 11 Comments →

During the past 12 months, the 80,000 professional men and women at Delta have worked diligently on your behalf to provide a safe, reliable, convenient and friendly travel experience. In 2012, Delta turned out the best performance in the history of the airline, including a 78 percent improvement in completed flights, a 5 percent improvement in on-time arrivals and a 27 percent improvement in baggage handling. Our team’s dedication to running a reliable operation also meant more opportunities to exceed your expectations, which resulted in a 37 percent reduction in customer complaints.

We have your back, and we intend to make 2013 even better for you.

While safety and reliability are what you expect from Delta, we believe you also deserve a comfortable, convenient and friendly travel experience – one that allows you to maximize your time on the ground and in the air.

We continue to invest in technology that allows you to connect with us in the manner you prefer. This $120 million investment includes the first phase of a new delta.com website that will simplify your journey and give you greater control of your travel experience. We continue to improve the speed of our kiosks, allowing you to check in an average of 18 seconds faster, and we’re adding more of our popular recharging stations at top airports to make it easier for you to stay connected.

By summer we will complete our largest project – renovating and expanding Terminal 4 at New York’s JFK International Airport to create a world-class facility fitting for the world’s largest travel market.

No other US airline is investing as much as Delta in facilities and improvements on the ground. We’re not stopping there.

By the end of this year, full flat-bed seats with direct aisle access will be the standard for our BusinessElite cabin onboard all of our widebody international aircraft. New and expanded cuisine, amenities and in-flight entertainment will allow to you relax and feel refreshed upon landing. If your travel requires a greater level of productivity, we hope you will take advantage of onboard Wi-Fi or streaming content. We’re pleased to be the largest provider of in-flight Wi-Fi in the world and look forward to expanding further by offering Wi-Fi access aboard international flights beginning in 2013.

If you love the look and feel of new aircraft and the smell of new leather, you’ll be pleased to experience beginning in the third quarter two aircraft types that are new to Delta’s fleet – the Boeing 737-900 and Boeing 717. These aircraft are part of our strategy to fly larger, more fuel efficient planes while reducing smaller regional jets. These new aircraft offer more first class seats for our premium customers and help us conserve fuel and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

We have a busy but exciting year ahead of us as we continue to improve our products and services to meet your travel needs. The on-board product – seats, aircraft, in-flight entertainment – are an important part of the experience we provide to you. Equally as important is the opportunity to make your journey that much better through the gracious service of Delta people worldwide.

We look forward to continuing to build a better airline for you.

Thanks for flying with us.

Richard Anderson

An Update on the Recent Experience of a Marine on a Delta Flight…

Published December 19th, 2012 in delta.com | 5 Comments →

Hi Everyone,

I want to give you an update on our efforts to address a negative experience a Marine had on a recent Delta flight and our efforts in response to this incident.

We have made several attempts to talk with this customer directly. We have yet to be able to reach him, but I have left my personal cell phone number with people who have agreed to pass it along to our customer. If given the opportunity, I’d like to personally apologize and attempt to make up for this experience.

When we learned of this event we immediately began a thorough review of what happened and how it happened. We found that in our haste to accommodate his request for an earlier flight than originally booked – one that was already being boarded when he arrived at the gate – we clearly missed opportunities to better serve him.

At Delta, we feel a deep obligation to support our nation’s servicemen and servicewomen who fly with us daily, and we will continue to do what we can to make this right.

We’re sorry for this service hero’s experience. And we are using this unfortunate and unacceptable incident as an opportunity to revisit and reinforce the standards that our more than 80,000 employees worldwide embody.

Thank you again for your concern,

Allison Ausband, vice president – Customer Care

Regarding the Recent Experience of a Marine on a Delta Flight…

Published December 14th, 2012 in delta.com | 21 Comments →

Many of you have expressed concern about a Washington Post blog account about a Marine who had a negative experience on a recent Delta flight. We too are unsettled by this incident.

We attempted to reach the customer as soon as we became aware of the situation, but so far have been unsuccessful in speaking with him directly.

An internal review is already underway to understand what occurred and take appropriate action. What is clear is that we did not care for this customer the way we should have. This incident doesn’t reflect the care with which Delta people serve our customers every day, and it doesn’t reflect the high regard we hold for those who do and have served our country.

We have the utmost respect and admiration for our active duty military and veterans who make tremendous sacrifices to protect and sustain the freedoms we enjoy every day; and our Delta team is typically very good at showing their respect through various means of recognition. Unfortunately, we failed in this situation. We strive to exceed expectations with every customer, and particularly regret when we fail a member of the military or person with a disability. We are taking this isolated situation very seriously and doing what we can to make it right with the customer.

Our efforts to do better for our customers are constant, but incidents like this one always make us pause to revisit service standards. We are doing that now; and will make this as right as we can for this customer, which will help to prevent situations like this in the future.

Thanks for voicing your concerns,

Allison Ausband, vice president – Customer Care

Filling in the White Spaces

Published December 13th, 2012 in delta.com | 2 Comments →

Where we fly is as important to our customers as how we fly. And we’re working to connect the dots across the globe to allow you to book with Delta to get virtually anywhere on earth. What’s also important, though perhaps less evident, is that we connect those dots in a way that also works for our business. We intend to be an airline you can rely on not just tomorrow, but also in the years to come.

This requires a strategy beyond buying shiny new planes and plotting the course on the map. Connecting globally means finding great partner airlines around the world – brands that have great networks of their own that fill in the white spaces on the Delta map.

Delta has just announced our next steps for connecting more dots on the map with more frequency for our customers: We’re forming a joint venture with Virgin Atlantic Airways, pending government approvals. It’s the latest in series of steps we’ve been taking to build a truly global airline network. The partnership combines the strengths of two U.K.-to-North America networks to offer 31 peak-day round-trip flights connecting the U.S., Canada and Mexico to the U.K. In New York, that means nine daily round-trips flights to Heathrow instead of just three – something we know makes a world of difference for our business customers.

As seen in the verbal sparring between carriers, competition at London’s coveted Heathrow airport is fierce.  There is no free entry or expansion because take-off and landing rights, called slots, are tightly controlled, extremely expensive and rarely available. The solution: Delta and Virgin Atlantic partnering to offer customers a greatly expanded network at Heathrow despite the limited access to slots.

We’re no novices when it comes to making these partnerships work. Our joint venture with Air France-KLM began more than a decade ago and was the first of its kind. We’ve also recently made investments in GOL and Aeromexico, which provide vital connections throughout Latin America. We have a joint venture with Virgin Australia that better connects the U.S. to Down Under. And, we’ve partnered with Alaska Airlines to offer a strong Western U.S. gateway in Seattle.

Today,Delta’s joint venture with Air France-KLM includes Alitalia and offers great connections to Europe through major hubs in Paris,Amsterdam and Rome. But the New York to London market – arguably the world’s top business route – remained underserved. By teaming up with Virgin Atlantic, we’ll fill the London gap. And you’ll be able to book beyond Heathrow on Virgin Atlantic throughout the UK and throughout Europeon more than 95 Air France, KLM and Alitalia flights that carry the Delta code.

To make this even better for customers, our joint venture partnerships go beyond your ability to book via Delta on these flights. These partnerships reap benefits for flyers in the form of one-stop booking for corporate accounts and seamless connections that in most cases don’t require schlepping long distances between terminals as well as the ability to earn and redeem frequent flyer miles and enjoy the benefits of airport lounges from Minneapolis to Manchester.

Our team is always on the lookout for the next great move to be able to carry you to more places worldwide. Our agreement with Virgin Atlantic is the latest step in that direction.

Video: http://bit.ly/VCCoff

Thanks,

Holden Shannon, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy