Seating Enhancements, Technology In-house Key to Delta’s Customer Experience Improvements

Enhancements to seating and other amenities, along with a key decision to gain control of the “heart and lungs of our technology systems,” will propel Delta Air Lines on its endless path to place the customer and his or her experience above everything else.

Since June 4, Delta customers began receiving upgraded amenities in Economy Comfort including complimentary pillows, blankets, and food options on all flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Customers on Delta’s transcontinental routes will continue to receive priority boarding, seats with more legroom, plus free beer, wine and spirits when they purchase Economy Comfort starting at $99 per flight segment.

Economy Comfort customers will receive a complimentary pre-set pillow and blanket on their seat while they board the aircraft. After boarding, Economy Comfort customers will be offered a Delta sleep kit, including eye shades and ear plugs, as added amenities. During flight, Economy Comfort customers will enjoy complimentary Luvo snack wraps and a full-size bottle of water for all flights and Luvo frozen yogurt bars as a mid-flight snack on most flights except those flights leaving the West Coast after 9 p.m.

What’s more, starting today, Delta will also operate three newly refurbished Boeing 757 aircraft with full flat-bed seats in the BusinessElite cabin. The addition of these aircraft to Delta’s existing 767 aircraft will offer customers full access to flat-bed seats in BusinessElite on all flights between New York-JFK and Los Angeles International Airport. As additional Boeing 757 aircraft are refurbished in the coming months, all transcontinental flights between New York-JFK and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle will feature full flat-bed seats in BusinessElite by summer 2015.

“All of these things are part of a broader approach to really provide the type of value our customers want,” Delta spokesperson Paul Skrbec told Loyalty360. “We really want to make sure we have the most desired things for our customers.”

Skrbec said Delta has a great variation in its aircraft sizes which present both opportunity and challenge at the same time.

“There should be similar aspects of the customer experience across all aircraft types,” he said.

Seating is just one of the customer enhancements Delta has implemented since its ongoing product investment began in January 2010.

Another major piece of the customer experience puzzle for Delta is technology and late last month the airline made a major announcement that involved bringing technology development back in-house.

Delta Air Lines and Travelport finalized an agreement in which Delta reacquired the data and intellectual property rights central to its passenger service and flight operations systems.  As a result, Delta will be the only U.S. airline to directly control these critical technology systems, making it better suited to build the next generation of technology that will improve the travel experiences of its customers.

“Last month we announced we were taking back in house what we refer to as the heart and lungs of our technology systems,” Skrbec said. “There are more than 600 different proprietary systems across the enterprise. The opportunity is to take critical systems that interact across the enterprise and have complete developmental control moving forward. It will help us to look at other ways to improve the customer experience.”

Travelport will continue to be a key partner with Delta. Travelport will continue to run the system infrastructure for the Delta platform in its Atlanta data center. The transition of more than 175 technology professionals to Delta will be effective July 1.

Skrbec said the biggest advantage will be that all of the developers from all of the proprietary systems will be able to collaborate together on technical designs.

Recent Content

Membership and Pricing

Videos and podcasts

Membership and Pricing