@xJonNYC has the scoop on how Delta Air Lines is planning some improvements to its long haul business class, which is marketed as Delta One. This is part of Delta’s goal of offering a best-in-class business class product. The question is, will the changes make a material difference, or is the airline being overly optimistic?
In this post:
Delta has a customer satisfaction problem
While Delta is often thought of as the most premium airline in the United States, it seems that a lot of the carrier’s premium customers aren’t very happy. Specifically, Delta has seen a sharp decline in its net promoter score (NPS) among Delta One passengers traveling across the Atlantic.
For those not familiar with NPS, this is a measure of the percentage of customers who are promoters minus the percent of customers who are detractors. The carrier’s NPS for transatlantic business class dropped sharply from 2019 to 2023, and while it has started to improve marginally in 2024, the airline still has a long way to go.
It’s obviously not great when you have a significant decrease in the number of customers who wouldn’t recommend an experience, compared to those who would.
Delta has lofty goal with its NPS, and hopes to get that number to 60 (from a low of under 33 in 2023). That’s super high, so how does Delta plan to accomplish that?
This part I THINK i have right: The reason for all this is that Delta's transatlantic business class NPS scores have fallen notably vs. prepandemic. NPS down 28% – was even worse in 2023 (I think I have that right)
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) November 29, 2024 at 4:50 PM
How Delta will improve its business class experience
Delta is undertaking an aggressive project between now and the end of 2026 to improve its business class experience, and this includes a variety of initiatives. Here are some of the changes that Delta plans to make in the next couple of years (some of these are already underway):
- Continuing to open Delta One Lounges; they’re already open in New York (JFK) and Los Angeles (LAX), and should open in Boston (BOS) and Seattle (SEA) in the next several months
- Continuing to expand the Missoni partnership, including introducing Missoni eye masks, slippers, and socks
- Upgrading catering, as the airline is currently transitioning to DO&CO catering out of New York, and plans to continue expanding that
- Rolling out free Wi-Fi on long haul flights, which is a project that should be completed in 2025
- Elevating bedding, including expanding the number of flights with mattress pads, and adding a cuddle pillow
- Improving the presentation of meals, including upgrading tray linens and service ware
- Upgrading beverage offerings, including a new champagne partnership
- Expanding the ability to pre-order meals
- Improving the quality of headsets
- Beginning dedicated flight attendant training for business class
- Rolling out “basic” business class, with “good, better, best” pricing tiers
- Improving the quality of seats, including taking delivery of Airbus A350-1000s, updating the cabins of Airbus A330-300s, and updating cabins with Delta’s new branding
Of course let me emphasize that this all remains subject to change, and airlines change their budgets for various things all the time, based on market conditions, strategy shifts, etc.
DL: Delta's 'good/better/best' unbundling of business class that Glen Hauenstein talked about at Investor Day is planned for 2026
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) November 29, 2024 at 4:46 PM
Can Delta offer a best-in-class business class?
To Delta’s credit, a lot of these changes are genuinely positive, and frankly, long overdue. The way I see it:
- The biggest improvement we’re seeing is the opening of Delta One Lounges, as Delta’s competitors have offered premium international lounges for years, while Delta hasn’t
- Free Wi-Fi is also a positive innovation, but up until now has caused frustration for many international travelers, as the Wi-Fi transition isn’t seamless
- I’ve seen a lot of negative reports regarding Delta’s catering in business class (though in fairness, the food was quite decent on my recent Delta One flight), so improving food and drinks will certainly make people happy
- I’d say the other changes are fairly minor, but add up, like an extra pillow, a mattress pad, etc.
But if you ask me, Delta’s single biggest issue across the Atlantic is something that the airline hasn’t even addressed. This is simply that Delta’s wide body fleet is super uncompetitive when it comes to business class seats, especially across the Atlantic:
- American exclusively flies 777s and 787s across the Atlantic, and at least all the seats have direct aisle access and are reasonably comfortable
- United has great consistency with its Polaris business class seats, with the only poor experience across the Atlantic being on 757s
Meanwhile on Delta, the A350-900s and A330-900neos are nice. The A330s are a bit outdated, but at least there are reverse herringbone seats, and there are plans to update them. But the real issue is Delta’s 767s, and in particular, the 767-300ERs. Delta’s 767-300ERs have the worst international business class product of any major US airline, by far (I’m not including United’s high density 777-200ERs, which primarily fly domestically).
Worst of all, Delta has no plans to improve that. Yes, those planes will eventually be retired, but for the coming years, customers will continue to find themselves in these seats. While the 767-400ERs have refreshed cabins, the seats are still super tight.
So if you ask me, the single biggest thing standing in the way of a higher NPS is Delta’s actual hard product that so many passengers experience.
Bottom line
Delta has seen customer satisfaction in business class decrease significantly, so the airline now wants to invest in order to reverse that trend. Between now and the end of 2026, we’ll see Delta make all kinds of product investments, ranging from new bedding, to better food and drinks, to new flight attendant training. Only time will tell if this leads to a best-in-class experience, though…
What do you make of Delta’s plans, and do you think the carrier can be best-in-class?
I saw a ridiculous sub $400 fare rt from aus atl gru with an overnight layover on Delta. If there was a reasonable upgrade offer from main cabin on one of those older 767s I would bite .
Don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance of flying D One as an American flyer. I’d be more inclined to try a one way flight in main cabin on Singapore Air or Korean Air 747. I mean how much better can the service possibly be than on American.
I am not a fan of the free WiFi. Both because they replaced Viasat on planes before the rollout of satellite coverage was complete, and also because now domestically it seems since everyone knows about the free WiFi it is super slow and unreliable. I’d happily pay $5 per flight for WiFi I could count on, but the bandwidth issues have been getting really bad.
Delta abrirá un delta one lounge en SLc?
As retired person with a love for travelling I do probably about a 100 flights a year. About half of them are feeder flights as I need to start from a small airport, which leaves about 50 mid and long haul flights a year.
My decision tree is as follows, provided I have the luxury of choice:
- wide body over narrow body (and avoid 767)
- Star Alliance and Skyteam over anything...
As retired person with a love for travelling I do probably about a 100 flights a year. About half of them are feeder flights as I need to start from a small airport, which leaves about 50 mid and long haul flights a year.
My decision tree is as follows, provided I have the luxury of choice:
- wide body over narrow body (and avoid 767)
- Star Alliance and Skyteam over anything else except Qatar, Emirates, Etihad
- Airbus over Boeing (with the exception of 787, other Boeings are way too noisy)
- if it has to be narrow body, Airbus and Embraer over 737
- for US travel to/from Europe and Asia, avoid US airlines
- never ever transit via US
first, where is the data to support the statement about DL's NPS falling? It may or may not be true but relying on hearsay on the internet proves nothing.
second, it makes no sense that the 767 is the reason for the fall in DL's NPS. The 767 fleet has been shrinking and is a smaller percentage of the fleet as new A350s and A330NEOs have come into the fleet. AA and UA have...
first, where is the data to support the statement about DL's NPS falling? It may or may not be true but relying on hearsay on the internet proves nothing.
second, it makes no sense that the 767 is the reason for the fall in DL's NPS. The 767 fleet has been shrinking and is a smaller percentage of the fleet as new A350s and A330NEOs have come into the fleet. AA and UA have not been retrofitted in that time.
if there is a reason for dissatisfaction, it is that the value is not there for many because they aren't getting it for the cheap mileage redemptions they did or with the benefits.
The solution is to take the product more upscale which involves relatively small additional expenditures.
ie DL does have mattress pads that it uses on TPAC A330 flights so the product exists. They have just upgraded food and staffing in Premium Select and the difference is notable.
They can do the same.
And let's keep in mind that AA will never be competitive with Delta in service while UA does not even have an industry leading business class product and their food is known as some of the worst on global airlines.
Yes, Delta can step it up another notch and win more customers as it grows its international network which is already the most profitable among US airlines.
The 767 is literally the reason why I avoid Delta in business class. I'm starting to question if you've ever flown it. Can you imagine paying thousands and thousands of dollars to end up on a seat so uncomfortable with an IFE from god knows when? Of course that will affect their NPS. And the 767 is almost impossible to avoid if you go to Europe.
I like Delta overall but that aircraft is the worst of all main 3 carriers from a premium seating perspective.
Maybe they could also bring back Delta One pj's.
Their own partner in Virgin Atlantic does this.
Linen and mattress pads on that scale, and presumably at custom sizes, would take a while to produce, and could easily be a lead time of a year or more. It would be similar with amenity kits.
The wine… it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to burn off the supply they have and switch to something better. I don’t know to what degree DL is stockpiling wine at those price points, but they...
Linen and mattress pads on that scale, and presumably at custom sizes, would take a while to produce, and could easily be a lead time of a year or more. It would be similar with amenity kits.
The wine… it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to burn off the supply they have and switch to something better. I don’t know to what degree DL is stockpiling wine at those price points, but they could even change the Int’l business wine on almost no notice to something better and burn off the remainder on domestic flights. Hopefully an easy change they can make sooner than later.
Why pre-ordering isn’t available on every flight with a meal already is a mystery. Hopefully they’ll also do away with the sad meal boxes on certain flights round-trip catered from hubs. They should at least be able to cater a proper hot meal on the outbound of those catering turns.
Well the 767-300's i think i read are going to be retired in 2030 so its unlikely to have a refresh cabin.
The thing here is that Delta is trying to fix the “value” issue: “is the price paid worth it?” They now charge much more but do nothing different. Introducing “Basic” business class isn’t going to fix this and will only make their scores worse. Paying for additional services is just going to alienate customers. I know I’m not the only one who finds it extremely frustrating when other carriers make me pay to choose a...
The thing here is that Delta is trying to fix the “value” issue: “is the price paid worth it?” They now charge much more but do nothing different. Introducing “Basic” business class isn’t going to fix this and will only make their scores worse. Paying for additional services is just going to alienate customers. I know I’m not the only one who finds it extremely frustrating when other carriers make me pay to choose a seat in business class.
One of the things I have found extremely frustrating in the last year is the exorbitant prices Delta now charges for an experience that isn’t markedly better than other carriers, and an approach of “including less” isn’t going to fix this.
I pushed to Diamond this year, and will hit million miler status sometime in 2025. After that I’ll be done with things like positioning flights to find a good fare on DL partners. Flying with status is nice but DL is just pricing me out of my most frequent routes.
Delta drove me to try other airlines on my DTW-NYC routes this year, and it turns out they are just fine. Not great, but enough. In comparison, DL is just overpriced and lacking in value.
I posted on Facebook the other day re: ending my delta era as 2024 closes. (Ie 8 years as an intl diamond). Someone asked why and this is what I wrote:
——-
“Essentially three reasons.
¥¥ Delta switched their program from a distance based to a spend based model. Previously the mark to hit was 125,000 miles. Now it requires $28,000.
¥¥ One of the main perks of diamond are 4...
I posted on Facebook the other day re: ending my delta era as 2024 closes. (Ie 8 years as an intl diamond). Someone asked why and this is what I wrote:
——-
“Essentially three reasons.
¥¥ Delta switched their program from a distance based to a spend based model. Previously the mark to hit was 125,000 miles. Now it requires $28,000.
¥¥ One of the main perks of diamond are 4 Global Upgrade certificates. They’re now considerably more expensive to use. (Previously one could upgrade a £350 coach ticket to business. Now they require a premium economy. So pretty much £1000 minimum, but often running as high as a crazy £3000. Depending on route, you can often just buy business for less on another carrier. It’s just no longer a benefit worth chasing, esp with my flexibility
¥¥ Skymiles inflation. In many situations, skymiles are essentially ‘skypesos’ owing to Delta’s AMEX partnership.
Delta floods the US market with billions of miles and simply jacked up their awards. Any award flight touching US are jacked to absolutely bonkers levels (700,000 miles RT for business to the US is the norm these days compared to 120-200,000-ish RT for everyone else’s on transatlantic routings).
Spending miles is still much more lucrative outside the US market, but they’ve been very steadily chipping away there too so direction of travel is pretty clear.
Will still fly them (love their new lounges!) - but loyalty is now little more than a transaction with them, so I’m treating the relationship accordingly, lol. Makes sense shifting to a new program with rules that syncs better with my to-ing & fro-ing”
Have to agree. I was a 10 year platinum/diamond flyer with Delta and in 2017 stopped trying for elite status. Number one reason was the gutting of the SkyMiles program. It wasn’t just the devaluations and negative changes - but also managements gleeful exuberance at destroying members redemption values. That attitude was from the top down.
A very simple thing they could do, which basically does not have any costs. Have the flight attendants refresh the lavatories regularly throughout the flight.
I feel like they must do something on international flights, or I’m just really lucky to have very clean fellow passengers on my flights…
Frozenkiwi and FNT telling it like it is.
Wine should be an immediate and shock and awe fix.
Then level up the food.
What's written in JonNYC's post - "Soft product upgrades under development include cuddle pillows, tray linens, and expanded pre-select meal offerings
New beverage partnership/ new champagne"
is all small ball stuff.
They have to do a lot more than offer some extra pre order meals and bring in a...
Frozenkiwi and FNT telling it like it is.
Wine should be an immediate and shock and awe fix.
Then level up the food.
What's written in JonNYC's post - "Soft product upgrades under development include cuddle pillows, tray linens, and expanded pre-select meal offerings
New beverage partnership/ new champagne"
is all small ball stuff.
They have to do a lot more than offer some extra pre order meals and bring in a beverage partner.
See what UNITED did to its wine program, full overhaul.
Only read the title: no
The key initiative in the list is the Basic Business Class project, which is all about increasing profits rather than improving NPS.
Essentially there will be a (temporary?) upgrade in soft product to justify the new higher fares. Those who keep paying todays fare will find their product stripped back, no lounge, no seat selection etc. etc.
Pre-covid DL had a better rating but since then their OTP has slipped, and the competition (other...
The key initiative in the list is the Basic Business Class project, which is all about increasing profits rather than improving NPS.
Essentially there will be a (temporary?) upgrade in soft product to justify the new higher fares. Those who keep paying todays fare will find their product stripped back, no lounge, no seat selection etc. etc.
Pre-covid DL had a better rating but since then their OTP has slipped, and the competition (other than AA) has started to catch up.
I cannot see how this is going to work
"Beginning dedicated flight attendant training for business class"
I'm sort of shocked that this wasn't a thing they had in place, already!
Well, BA has just started having a 3 days course for cabin attendants to be assigned to first class. But yes, it is kind of shocking that it was not already the case.
As a DL diamond, I couldn’t agree more. This was the last year I decide to run the rat race with them. I can comfortably make platinum with delta and spread the rest of my travel across other airlines that provide better pricing, quality, and routes instead of putting that extra to DL and their partners in order to get diamond. Their premium ain’t so premium when you compare it against non US airlines, and...
As a DL diamond, I couldn’t agree more. This was the last year I decide to run the rat race with them. I can comfortably make platinum with delta and spread the rest of my travel across other airlines that provide better pricing, quality, and routes instead of putting that extra to DL and their partners in order to get diamond. Their premium ain’t so premium when you compare it against non US airlines, and I couldn’t agree with you more on the hard product and the inconsistencies. Both AA and UA beat them there. Luckily, being on the West coast, I usually can line up my flights to be on the nicer DL1 suites or fly with a partner transatlantic… but they’re just not competitive enough to keep my exclusive business. Maybe this effort will change it… but honestly, until the hard product improves, I doubt it.
$5 wine on a $5,000 business-class ticket is going to get low scores. No mattress pads, inedible food, premium-economy amenity kits, etc. Why is it going to take Delta until the end of 2025 to improve wine and improve linen?