Delta Air Lines has just announced plans to introduce new product names and travel experiences for flights as of this fall. The changes include more than just updated branding, though. Let’s discuss the details, which are live effective immediately, for flights as of October 1, 2025.
In this post:
Delta rebrands and simplifies product names
Let’s start with the more minor change, which you’ll immediately see for flights as of October 1, 2025. Delta is tweaking the names of its various products:
- Delta Main is replacing Main Cabin (Delta’s standard economy product); furthermore, Basic Economy will become a type of Delta Main fare, rather than being listed separately
- Delta Comfort is replacing Delta Comfort+ (Delta’s extra legroom economy seating)
- Delta First is replacing First Class (Delta’s standard domestic first class)
- Delta Premium Select and Delta One remain as before (Delta’s premium economy and business class, respectively)
As you can tell, there’s nothing extreme here. The idea is just that each product type has “Delta” at the beginning, to take a more consistent approach to product branding. The names of each product have also been shortened, and for good reason, as I’ll explain below…
Delta adds Basic, Classic, and Extra fare options
Here’s where it gets interesting. Delta is rebranding and simplifying its product names so that it can increasingly offer a few options for each type of fare. For now, Delta is promoting this in the context of Delta Main, which “now includes three experience options allowing you to better tailor your journey.” So there are Delta Main Basic fares, Delta Main Classic fares, and Delta Main Extra fares.
What’s included with each of these fares?
- Delta Main Basic offers the same as the previous Basic Economy option, including seat assignments after check-in, Zone 8 boarding, cancelation with a fee for a partial eCredit, no mileage or MQD earning, and no Sky Club entry
- Delta Main Classic is the standard Main Cabin fare, including seat assignments at booking, Zone 6 or 7 boarding, cancelation for an eCredit without a fee, 5x miles and MQD earning, and upgrades with Medallion satus
- Delta Main Extra offers Zone 5 boarding, 7x miles per dollar spent, higher priority for upgrades, fully refundable fares back to the original form of payment, same day standby, and more
Essentially, Classic fares will be what we’re used to for each fare bundle, while Extra fares will be refundable and offer more perks. For now, Basic fares are only in economy. So to break it down, here are the fare types:
- Delta Main Basic
- Delta Main Classic
- Delta Main Extra
- Delta Comfort Classic
- Delta Comfort Extra
- Delta First Classic
- Delta First Extra
- Delta Premium Select Classic
- Delta Premium Select Extra
- Delta One Classic
- Delta One Extra
Delta’s motivation with these changes is pretty clear
So, why is Delta suddenly updating its fare branding and types in this way? It seems like there are a couple of motivations.
For one, we know that Delta wants to unbundle even premium fares, and introduce “basic business class.” So this new fare structure is the first step to making that a reality. As mentioned above, for now we’re only seeing “Basic” as part of the Delta Main fare type, but now that can easily be expanded to premium fare types as well. Get ready for Delta Comfort Basic, Delta First Basic, Delta One Basic, etc.
Second, it’s clear that the airline is trying to get people to buy up from the Classic to Extra fare, by including more things with the more premium bundle. For example, Delta Main Extra now offers higher upgrade priority than Delta Main Classic. Looking at the terms:
Medallion Members with Delta Main Extra tickets will receive “tie-breaker” prioritization over Main Classic experiences within the Complimentary Upgrade Hierarchy, after Medallion Status, product purchased, and Million Miler status.
So yeah, this is Delta’s latest effort to get people to buy up to a higher fare. After elite tier and Million Miler status, Main Extra vs. Main Classic is the tie breaker for an upgrade. Then again, given how few seats there are to upgrade to, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to pay extra just for that. For so long, we’ve seen airlines try to get people to upfare from a basic fare to a standard fare, but now that’s being taken to the next level.
Bottom line
Delta is rebranding and updating its fare types. This isn’t just a marketing change, but it has significant implications. We’ll now see Delta introduce Basic, Classic, and Extra fares within bundles.
While Basic is for now only available in Delta Main, this makes it easy for Delta One Basic to be introduced in the future, which we know is in the cards. Furthermore, this is also part of Delta’s effort to get customers to pay more for flights and upfare, as booking an Extra ticket now gets you higher upgrade priority than booking a Classic ticket.
What do you make of Delta’s updated fare types and branding?
Delta is getting a little big for its britches. My wife and I are planning a trip to Asia, looking at Emirates and Etihad, both have First Class seats for half the price of Delta. Delta One may be good, but it is not that good. A 15 year Diamond and my loyalty to Delta is gone.
It’s to align with Air France and KLM
Always buy basic economy if you’re paying for it. Pay for extras only as needed. The airlines don’t care if you’re medallion or non member.
I always chuckle @ the 'Comfort' nomenclature..... I immediately ascribe "UNcomfortable" to the lower, preceding class ( which, at least is correct ).. I commend the transparency !
The 'bundles' wreak of the ULCCs...
Life is so less stressful off the 'hamster wheel' !
Any alien landing in the U.S. who is not used to the Delta terminology will simply walk away shaking their heads in disbelief. American and United, etc, must be laughing up their sleeves.
Thank goodness that Tim will be vertical soon to explain it to the ‘bears of very little brain’ …. :-)
American and United actually already do this!
Did you mean extraterrestrial alien or illegal alien ? ,,, lol.
Yes bossa! …. :-)
Yes bossa! …. :-)
Was on a flight last night. For pre-board, they included military veterans . . . not just active and retired. Is this new or just the gate agent exercising discretion?
One buys a business fare for an exclusive (and yes that is a bit oxymoron) experience, not be nickeled and dimed to death).
I literally bought a first class ticket this week. Now I am only "Classic" and miss out on the extra miles, just because I didn't need a refundable ticket.
They should work on standardizing the Delta One product before they worry about segmentation. Imagine seeing an image of someone drinking champagne on an A350, only to walk into a janky 767 with a 20-year old seat.
20 years would be too young for Delta’s 767s, they’re usually 25-30 years old. They are janky though!
Delta is just copying AA - has had same breakdown for coach for some time. UA has similar.
Wow, let's add additional seat class names and boarding groups so that the average consumer can now be even MORE confused. People already don't know how to board and deplane. Let's keep it that way says Delta.
This times a thousand! I'm a miles and points person and even I got mentally tired just reading this post.
It's not that hard. There's a huge number that says what boarding group you are on your boarding pass. The problem is people don't follow the rules. US airports need to copy European airports and have gates that won't open unless you scan a boarding pass with the correct zone.
The real news… they accidentally slipped in a new product feature… higher MQD qualifying requirements coming soon to a medallion program near you. Anyone else catch the medallion tracker that said Gold $12,000 instead of $10,000. @Ben, can you ask Delta?
Still seeing 28K for Diamond on both the web and app, including logging out and incognito mode to make sure nothing was stored.
I am assuming that it’s a future change they’ll announce for next year and just accidentally included in this video.
I have a feeling they are going to use this to devalue business class award tickets by booking them into basic and stripping out the lounge access.
Who knows what the future brings when basic is introduced to other cabins but for now Delta states that awards are booked in classic (you can't book extra with miles).
Makes sense - award tickets are refundable anyway. It'd be a real shiesty move to make award fares even higher.
While I've seen dumber things than this for sure, I really don't see how this moves the needle for anyone. I'm sure I will end up buying either Main Classic or Comfort (depending on fares/distance) as I already did.
Same for me but there were always people buying refundable tickets (like JustinB commented) ... so maybe there were also people always THINKING about buying refundable tickets ... and maybe for them the two extra miles earned are just the tipping point. Maybe ... I don't know if that's the case but possible.
Executives in Atlanta have a bad history with naming thing Classic.
Zinnng!
Glad they didn't introduce a basic fare in PY and J like KLM/Air France etc.
So where does holding a delta reserve card fall in the hierarchy of tiebreakers ?
As someone who buys refundable tickets most of the time I welcome a few extra miles per dollar thrown my way
So, how does the Classic/Extra RDM earning interact with status tier bonuses?
Classic is exactly the same as what we are used to, so it's quite a fitting name one could say: 5, 7, 8, 9, 11 miles per dollar depending on your status (general, silver, gold, platinum, diamond).
Extra gives you 2 additional miles per dollar, so it's 7, 9, 10, 11, 13 miles per dollar.
Racing to the bottom in the name of the bottom line, what a surprise. Just an excuse now to charge the old Main Cabin prices for what is now Basic Econ. Novel thought, if an offering is radically different from the other two on the category, they shouldn't be IN the same category. Otherwise what is the point of the categorization? Rhetorical question, we all know what the point here is.
Feels like they are just creating the infrastructure at this point. I'm sure they'll create Delta One Basic to not give lounge access, etc.
More interesting would be if they allowed Delta Main Extra to receive upgrades over Main Classic regardless of if you have status with Delta, although even there, upgrades are pretty hard to come by anyway. Otherwise hard to see what the incentive to buy Delta Main Extra is - a...
Feels like they are just creating the infrastructure at this point. I'm sure they'll create Delta One Basic to not give lounge access, etc.
More interesting would be if they allowed Delta Main Extra to receive upgrades over Main Classic regardless of if you have status with Delta, although even there, upgrades are pretty hard to come by anyway. Otherwise hard to see what the incentive to buy Delta Main Extra is - a few extra miles and a boarding group? Being a little short on MQDs? Buy your own premium experience!
That's indeed a good question, why should one buy-up to main extra. The few extra miles don't seem worth it. And the earlier boarding? Well, maybe. You know, all those folks hoping to get onboard a little earlier than others to secure a spot in the overhead bin for their carry-on. Of course. it also depends on what the fare difference is. Most likely too much so it's not worth it. I don't know how...
That's indeed a good question, why should one buy-up to main extra. The few extra miles don't seem worth it. And the earlier boarding? Well, maybe. You know, all those folks hoping to get onboard a little earlier than others to secure a spot in the overhead bin for their carry-on. Of course. it also depends on what the fare difference is. Most likely too much so it's not worth it. I don't know how many people bought refundable tickets ... and how many more needed the small extras to reach a tipping point to buy it?
I guess it's nice that buying a refundable ticket comes with a few "Extra" perks, but it's not a buy-up incentive for someone who wouldn't otherwise be buying a refundable ticket and is fine with an e-credit. The perks are really just replicating what someone who already has the Delta Gold credit card would get (boarding group 5...). And if you have the Delta Platinum credit card for instance you can get on the upgrade...
I guess it's nice that buying a refundable ticket comes with a few "Extra" perks, but it's not a buy-up incentive for someone who wouldn't otherwise be buying a refundable ticket and is fine with an e-credit. The perks are really just replicating what someone who already has the Delta Gold credit card would get (boarding group 5...). And if you have the Delta Platinum credit card for instance you can get on the upgrade list without status after Medallion status members and Reserve card holders. So just trying to think of what the buy-up incentive is here - maybe you get on the upgrade list as a Platinum or something. Just feels like there's more to come here.
If (when) D1/DPS Basic are launched, I'm curious what the overlap will be of purchasers would theoretically have lounge access through status or Amex. OR, will DL update the rules such that any Basic fare, regardless of cabin, does not get lounge access in order to attempt to reduce some crowding.
It's really not that hard to understand, it's just a re-naming of what used to be "refundable economy." Pretty sure most people who bought those kind of fares, will continue to do so, and those who didn't, won't.
The only change from then to now, is that they've added the upgrade incentive (which as the article mentions, is meaningless, in a world where 30+ people were already trying to upgrade to the 1 or 2 seats available).
So it cant be filtered out using no basic options.
Big change for OPM flyers too who have to book via corporate portals in the lowest main cabin, which had exclusions for basic before
I don't think this will have an impact on corporate portals. Guessing that Main Basic will still book into the basic fare class, which I assume corporate portals will continue to filter out based on corporate policy. This appears to be more of a cosmetic change while preparing the infra to easily add basic Delta One.
I wish I could more easily filter out "basic" from searches. The current DL interface requires that I do it manually *every time*. (UA, as a point of contrast, doesn't allow it to be filtered out at all. So I guess there's that.)
United does - there is an option to exclude Basic Econ fares. On mobile, it seems to stick for me as well.
Google Flights is also testing a filter to remove Basic Econ fares. I saw it for a week or so but it seems like I don't have it anymore.
This is basic and boring, not to mention ridiculous. Someone at Delta should spend more time training their ground staff to be more professional, over this rubbish.
Wasn’t paying more within a cabin always a way to rank upgrade priority? I.e. economy fare class
The names still suck. Why is first worse than premium and one? First class is associated with the top option
Dumb question on my side (have no experience on AA, UA, etc): is it only Delta that offers something like their domestic first class? I mean it's not surprising that international business class is considered better than domestic first class. But no matter what, I guess you won't find a flight that offers both, so indeed first is top option ... on flights where it's available.
This is beyond stupid. Delta first and Delta one to the average person will sound like the same product. And it’s interesting that Delta Premium Select is listed ahead of Delta First. That’s just going to confuse people even more. In terms of upgrade tie-breaking priority, I guess Delta Main Extra is akin to the old days when you could book a full-fare, economy-class ticket and get instantly upgraded into domestic first-class. This is real...
This is beyond stupid. Delta first and Delta one to the average person will sound like the same product. And it’s interesting that Delta Premium Select is listed ahead of Delta First. That’s just going to confuse people even more. In terms of upgrade tie-breaking priority, I guess Delta Main Extra is akin to the old days when you could book a full-fare, economy-class ticket and get instantly upgraded into domestic first-class. This is real sneaky on Delta’s part because the reality is the vast majority of people buying a Delta Main Extra ticket will not get upgraded in the first-class, unless Delta copies United’s playbook and starts adding more capacity to first-class and business-class. I am curious if the changes impact global and regional upgrade certificates or Sky Club lounge access. If I recall correctly, a Delta elite with Sky Team Elite or Sky Team Elite Plus statuses cannot access a Sky Club lounge with an economy-class ticket.
And what happens to tickets already purchased for the remainder of the calendar year? It seems like they should’ve rolled this out for January 1.
Tickets already purchased for flights Oct 1 or later become Classic tickets (main => main classic; first => first classic, etc). So nothing changes for those people because the classic experience is ... well ... classic ;-)
And regarding the nomenclature: someone who assumes that Delta First is the same as Delta One ... well, I guess, this person already assumed that Delta One is the same as First Class?
I think the new...
Tickets already purchased for flights Oct 1 or later become Classic tickets (main => main classic; first => first classic, etc). So nothing changes for those people because the classic experience is ... well ... classic ;-)
And regarding the nomenclature: someone who assumes that Delta First is the same as Delta One ... well, I guess, this person already assumed that Delta One is the same as First Class?
I think the new names are not worse or better than the old ones.
And no, Main Extra is well different from full-fare Y tickets. It replaces Main Cabin Refundable with minor extras like 2 additional miles earned per dollar (7, 9, 10, 11, 13 instead of 5, 7, 8, 9, 11) or the slightly higher upgrade priority.
They essentially are the same product. Delta First will be the highest class on domestic flights and Delta One will be the highest class on international flight. Delta Premium Select is essentially domestic first class on an international flight, but still less than Delta One.
Thank God they put "Delta" in front of the old names to reflect what airline was doing this...I would've gotten confused when it came time to book...
Couldn’t agree more!
Especially when you book an AF or Virgin flight and the ticket says the class is Delta One. Its crystal clear!