Traditional Thai Dancers

Sa was dee krub! ‘Hello’ in Thai. The 2009 international build in Chiang Mai, Thailand, is off to a great start. We have a very strong contingent for this year’s Habitat for Humanity project. Joining me this year are more than 65 employees from various functions, departments, cities and countries along with one very special customer and his guest.

Our first day in Chiang Mai was spent enjoying a true Thai experience at Maesa Elephant Camp about 30 minutes outside of the city. The elephants were amazing. They are highly trained and engaging to the audience. The elephants performed a detailed show for us—including painting portraits, throwing darts, playing socceer and more. The best part of the camp was a 30 minute elephant ride around the site, going up and down hills, crossing streams. My partner on the ride was flight attendant from TAM–Ann. Ann and I had a great time on our 22 year female elephant.

After the elephant camp, we had a police escort to the official Mekong Build Opening ceremony at Royal Flora palace. The Royal Flora palace is breath-taking and immaculate with a lot of flowers, plants, shrubs and art work. The opening ceremony was held for all of the 2,000 plus volunteers from around the world, with the largest representation from the United States.

Our wonderful host kicked off the ceremony with a taste of Thailand in an open area market featuring local appetizers, dessert, and drinks. The food was delicious. My personal favorites were rice fried dough nuts and grilled rice cakes.

Habitat for Humanity Jimmy Carter Build Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony included an up close and personal fireworks show featuring 82 fireworks to honor the King’s 82nd birthday on December 5. The evening’s highlight was a welcome by President Jimmy Carter. President Carter gave a great speech on the importance of service and giving back to others. The President acknowledged Delta Air Lines’ generous support and the volunteers in the audience. Needless to say, we cheered the President for his personal “shout out”.

President Carter and Delta Employees

The evening ended with a wonderful show of local songs and dances. The week definitely started off with a bang. Now, its time for sleep and the great work ahead of us –building six homes in 5 days!

Shawn Cole
Director Finance DGS

On Sunday August 23rd, we celebrated the second birthday of “Under the Wing,” your go-to source for all things Delta. Since launching our blog, we’ve seen technology and social media evolve, creating new ways for Delta to interact with you, our customers. So we want to take a look back as well as check in and get your thoughts on where you’d like us to go from here.

With “Under the Wing,” we keep you up to speed on Delta news and events, introduce you to people behind the scenes and on the frontlines, throw in little bits of airline history here and there, and solicit your feedback. We’ve enjoyed great success because of your thoughtful and helpful comments and insights and we’ve enjoyed making your suggestions a reality (including sour cream and onion Pringles onboard!).

And we’ve had fun with our YouTube channel as well. Visitors can check out our now-famous in-flight safety video, watch 25 employee travel guides highlighting our destinations, and more. We also regularly post photos on our official Flickr photostream, and encourage customers like you to post travel pictures to our official Flickr group.

We’re trying to find the best ways in which we can leverage other social media/permission based marketing sites to have the most positive affect on our customers. And we want to make wise decisions as to how we manage our accounts. We need to have the right people in place to monitor, post and respond.

So, we would love your opinion: how do think we could best use Twitter, Facebook, and this blog. And as always, thank you for your support following us during the past two years.

It’s been quite a fun ride!

Katie M.
Customer Communications

Over the past few weeks we’ve heard your requests for a central, public place on delta.com to house our featured SkyMiles promotions. To see the latest, check out the SkyMiles Travel Offers section of our newly updated Deals & Offers page below.

New promotions will be added regularly, so check back often. You need to be a current SkyMiles member to enjoy these mileage-earning promotions, so enroll today if you haven’t already.

How do you like our new Deals and Offers page with featured SkyMiles promotions?

Enjoy!

Katie
Relationship Marketing