Delta Air Lines has just announced a collaboration with Missoni, which might just be the most premium collaboration we’ve ever seen from a US airline…
In this post:
Delta partners with Missoni on amenity kits, lounges
Delta and Italian luxury fashion house Missoni are partnering on both amenity kits and lounges, which is a pretty cool collaboration.
The first part of this collaboration includes new amenity kits for Delta One, which is the name of Delta’s premium business class experience.
The new amenity kits will feature Missoni’s signature textured zigzag pattern on the exterior of the bag. That same design continues inside the bag, as Missoni and Delta teams created an exclusive pattern and color palette that “celebrates the view from the window at 30,000 feet while paying homage to Delta’s nearly 100-year flying heritage” (I’m not sure I totally “see” that, but maybe I just don’t have a good imagination).
The actual contents of the kits won’t change compared to what they have today. They’ll continue to feature Grown Alchemist skincare products, a bamboo toothbrush and toothpaste, an eye mask, ear plugs, socks, and a pen.
These new amenity kits will start to roll out as of mid-July 2024 on all Delta flights to and from Italy and Paris, before launching worldwide in September 2024. These are exclusive to Delta One, as Premium Select (Delta’s premium economy) will continue to offer amenity kits designed by Someone Somewhere.
This collaboration goes beyond amenity kits. A Delta One Lounge will be opening at JFK on June 26, 2024, and it will feature a selection of Missoni’s home collection. I’m sure more details will be revealed in the coming days.
Here’s how Mauricio Parise, Delta’s VP of Brand Experience Design, describes this partnership:
“We’ve been intentional about creating a Delta One experience—both on the ground and in the air—that feels truly premium and elevated, and Missoni’s elegance and prestige aligns perfectly with that vision. The Missoni-designed amenity kits, along with unique design elements that will be featured in our Delta One Lounge at JFK, will offer a distinct, high-end enhancement to our most premium spaces.”
Here’s how Alberto Caliri, Missoni’s Creative Director, describes this partnership:
“The Missoni amenity kits have been meticulously designed, embodying a timeless declaration of elegance and a profound connection with the surrounding world. Additionally, customizing the Delta One Lounge at JFK signifies an important new frontier for our lifestyle approach. We are delighted to partner with Delta on the Delta One experience.”
What a brilliant collaboration!
Delta tries to position itself as being by far the most premium airline in the United States. Yes, Delta offers a better passenger experience than other carriers in some areas. But I’d say what Delta does best is marketing itself as premium, while offering a marginally better experience, on balance.
I think this is the perfect example of that, and how Delta is able to get a halo effect. We see US airlines have all kinds of collaborations on products, but rarely are they actually with truly high-end companies. We’ve never seen a US carrier partner with a fashion brand on Missoni’s level, so this is pretty cool.
This doesn’t materially change the Delta One experience, but this will be an aspect of the flight that many people remember and talk about. I think a lot of airlines underestimate the extent to which little positive aspects of the passenger experience leave a favorable impression, and end up being what people talk about with friends and family.
I imagine this Missoni kit will be one of those things. And it’s also something that many travelers will no doubt keep, as the kit can be repurposed for other uses.
Bottom line
Delta and Missoni are launching a partnership. The most significant aspect of this is that Delta One passengers will soon be getting Missoni amenity kits, which look pretty elegant. On top of that, we’ll find some items from Missoni’s home collection in the upcoming Delta One Lounge JFK.
What do you make of Delta and Missoni partnering?
wow @ delta issuing a $1 piece of plastic with a brand on it.
Lucky-
Maybe it’s time to retrench and reevaluate. I’ve been an avid reader of yours for several years now and while I feel that your output and contribution to the world of travel is of a very high quality I certainly cannot say the same for the people who tend to contribute to these comments.
Clearly you are privileged to metrics I am not, and perhaps the financials and clicks justify the present situation, but...
Lucky-
Maybe it’s time to retrench and reevaluate. I’ve been an avid reader of yours for several years now and while I feel that your output and contribution to the world of travel is of a very high quality I certainly cannot say the same for the people who tend to contribute to these comments.
Clearly you are privileged to metrics I am not, and perhaps the financials and clicks justify the present situation, but whoa buddy do these fuckers scrape at the very bottom.
Repetitive, formulaic, and grievance driven comments should not be what you reap from your honorable efforts. Perhaps there is no way out and if so you have my condolences, but if there is I bid you to take it.
You don't like the comments, don't read them.
Pay him enough, I'm sure you can buy his blog. Then do whatever you want with the comments.
Delta's A350s, 339s, and 764s sport an updated Delta One cabin. The rest of the fleet (A330-300, A330-200, 767-300ER) that feature Delta One have terrible seats, dated and worn cabins. This is all smoke and mirrors. Delta ain't no premium airline.
Now if Delta would just do something about that dull & boring livery of theirs. I repeat again, the shade of the red & blue colors they use are not esthetically pleasing nor do they read well against each other. Ditto for those ugly blue seats. Perhaps they should ask Missoni for help.
This blog's incessant trolling of and by Tim Dunn has got me so desensitized that I can't even tell if Ben is being serious or not with his language of this being actually "premium" or not.
To my layperson's eyes, Missoni is not something I know much about, so I'm not sure if we're ironically calling it "premium".
just look at Missoni's website and you can determine if they price at a premium.
Whether anything is "premium" is in the eyes of a beholder; if customers pay more for products than what other companies charge, that is a premium product from a business standpoint.
Ben's assessment is correct.
did you really think Delta would do something that wasn't Premium?
Sorry Jose from Oaxaca. You are now demoted to No one No where.
However Missoni is just a lipstick on a pig, if that's all Delta is putting in it's kit.
Jose didn't knit a bad kit. The kit was from the beginning, useless and cheap.
Good news -- Missoni is solid. Would be nice if they could change up some of the contents but the bag itself looks pretty good.
Can Virgin please step up their game now? It's one area where BA is consistently beating them (albeit by far the least important... but it's still something)
Agreed @Redacted. Virgin went from having the best kits - both case and contents - a couple decades ago (I still use a case for my toiletries) to the worst kits. The contents were super fun and included a quality pen with an aviation theme, a notepad, cooling eye masks and a luggage tag cool enough that they got stolen off my bags by baggage handlers (grr), among other things. Now their cardboard kits are...
Agreed @Redacted. Virgin went from having the best kits - both case and contents - a couple decades ago (I still use a case for my toiletries) to the worst kits. The contents were super fun and included a quality pen with an aviation theme, a notepad, cooling eye masks and a luggage tag cool enough that they got stolen off my bags by baggage handlers (grr), among other things. Now their cardboard kits are an embarrassment. BA kits are nice enough, but they just changed them to be smaller pouches. American's flagship business kits are surprisingly nice.
Never heard that name before, I guess I'm not into fashion. It's therefore of no consequence
Cool story bro. Everyone was just dying to know whether you knew the brand and how it impacted you. Loser.
Some of the contents are different from the current bags, at least in the pictures provided. Currently Delta has Humble Co. toothpaste, but the picture shows Marvis. Socks are also a new edition; they got rid of them in the Someone Somewhere kits, in favor of slippers.
Missoni is pretty high end. Whoever thinks otherwise is a dummy
Saudia has Missoni amenity kits as well and I would say it's among the best I have ever received, but in quality of bag and the contents.
Lmao, Tumi is the most premium brand Delta has partnered with.
Missoni is like Hugo Boss, most people only know the lower end umbrella of the brand, not the premium part where items cost 10 grand+
What Delta does best is deliver a consistently above-average product than its peers and turn that performance into higher revenue.
Missoni scored a huge win in getting their brand on Delta and getting Delta to showcase its products and that likely translated into a very competitive price. Companies think long and hard about who they want as co-marketing partners. Missoni amenity kits will be popping up in far more high value places than Missoni could...
What Delta does best is deliver a consistently above-average product than its peers and turn that performance into higher revenue.
Missoni scored a huge win in getting their brand on Delta and getting Delta to showcase its products and that likely translated into a very competitive price. Companies think long and hard about who they want as co-marketing partners. Missoni amenity kits will be popping up in far more high value places than Missoni could ever place its products.
I’m impressed even you can admit DL can only deliver an above-average product. Candidly, that’s even too generous. Delta is the definition of mid. Nothing premium about DL.
This is absolutely right. as a reminder, Delta's RASM is $1,000,000 and its CASM is $0.01. The opposite is true for all other airlines in the world.
I think Delta cheapens Missoni.
Delta to the poor Mexican ladies in Michoacan: "Good luck being poor and thanks for the Amenity kits..."
https://news.delta.com/delta-introduces-artisan-made-amenity-kits-mexican-apparel-brand-someone-somewhere
Also, I guess plastic is OK again. They advertised that the old kits reduced plastic by eliminating zippers. And the material of these new kits does not appear 100% natural.
it's truly the Delta way...
Marketing about helping poor disadvantaged Mexicans? Yep! until we don't care anymore.
Helping the environment? Yep! Until we don't care about plastic.
All Aisle Access in Business class? Yes. Until it's inconvient?
Free wifi on our planes? Yes. Unless we don't (hell... you may not get any wifi, at all, on a 12 hour flight to Auckland. be grateful)
TVs at every seat? Yes. Unless we don't on...
it's truly the Delta way...
Marketing about helping poor disadvantaged Mexicans? Yep! until we don't care anymore.
Helping the environment? Yep! Until we don't care about plastic.
All Aisle Access in Business class? Yes. Until it's inconvient?
Free wifi on our planes? Yes. Unless we don't (hell... you may not get any wifi, at all, on a 12 hour flight to Auckland. be grateful)
TVs at every seat? Yes. Unless we don't on MANY of our planes.
Lucky is right... Delta loves to market their premiumness and ignore their past marketing or current product offering, whenever convenient.
@Maxpower - You said it yourself, "Delta loves to MARKET..." That's the game. Everyone markets. Delta just often does it better than their domestic peers, and they're hardly alone in virtue signaling. No airline is sustainable - I don't care how many virtual trees someone pays to plant to offset it. Do you think United's Polaris announcement that took 5 or 6 years to get to 80% implementation was the God's honest truth? How about...
@Maxpower - You said it yourself, "Delta loves to MARKET..." That's the game. Everyone markets. Delta just often does it better than their domestic peers, and they're hardly alone in virtue signaling. No airline is sustainable - I don't care how many virtual trees someone pays to plant to offset it. Do you think United's Polaris announcement that took 5 or 6 years to get to 80% implementation was the God's honest truth? How about AA's Isom rolling out a new advisory group to focus on the experience of Black customers, to promote the reporting of discrimination allegations, and to improve diversity training to “focus on real-world situations to help recognize and address bias and discrimination.” That's totally because they care, right?
There's no way that it's marketing or gasp - trying to get out ahead of defending themselves in court for deplaning every black male from a flight. But I guess Delta's the most hypocritical, I mean profitable, no I had it right the first time...hypocritical airline in the US.
What material is the new kit? Leather or plastic? And can I sell you a bunch of really nice kits? I’ve reach the limit of how many kits I can share with the grand nieces and nephews ;-)
The other interesting part of this story is that the called the new premium lounge the “Delta One Lounge” which we haven’t had the official name for up until they snuck it in here!
Did anyone *really* think DL would call it anything else?
the most premium amenity kit in the history of flight
Hee Hee
We’re talking about a brand that most Americans probably know from its Target collection if at all, so I’m not sure this is exactly a new standard of luxury and big name collaborations for US carriers.
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Mossimo, which is NOT related to Missoni.
Actually it seems you're correct. Missoni did have a Target collection back in 2011. TIL.
This is totally appropriate for DL. Try to market Missoni as ultra-premium when most will only think of Target when this hits the public. Hahaha…DL is absolute garbage in terms of their premium soft product offering.
Food & Bev - embarrassingly awful
D1 Service - Totally lackluster
Amenity kit - Target variety
Bedding - Cheap and lacking. The number of times I’ve had stained pillows and blankets is in the double...
This is totally appropriate for DL. Try to market Missoni as ultra-premium when most will only think of Target when this hits the public. Hahaha…DL is absolute garbage in terms of their premium soft product offering.
Food & Bev - embarrassingly awful
D1 Service - Totally lackluster
Amenity kit - Target variety
Bedding - Cheap and lacking. The number of times I’ve had stained pillows and blankets is in the double digits
Delta sucks at attempting anything “Premium”
If DL Food & Bev is that bad, then what is United's literal dog chow on a plate?
The amenity kit looks great, let’s hope they follow up with new seats and that the lounge matches the brands look
It’s about time they had a premium amenity kit brand this will be on par with the Middle Eastern carriers
Want to hear something ironic. The only reason I know Delta sees itself as more premium than the other USA-based airlines is because Ben mentions it occasionally. Otherwise I would have no idea as to me AA offering Flagship Lounge and United offering Polaris Lounge makes those two feel more premium (as of now, as I know Delta One is coming). Think it is one of those things, us lay people just don't think about these things lol.
LOL I completely agree. Nothing about Delta screams "premium" anymore than AA or UA. Unless awful legroom in F and overcrowded lounges are considered premium!
What about the premium you get charged when you try using SkyMiles?
The best J product in U.S. transoceanic flights are European and Asian carriers. U.S. carriers are a step below.
No, that’s absolutely not true. I hate on DL a lot, but I’m also honest when credit is due.
Better European & Asian transoceanic in J:
Air France
ITA Airways
Austrian
Virgin Atlantic
Air Serbia
Turkish
Qatar Airways
Etihad
Emirates
Singapore Airlines
Thai Airlines
Cathay Pacific
Qantas
Air New Zealand
ANA
Japan Airlines
Starlux
EVA Air
Worse...
No, that’s absolutely not true. I hate on DL a lot, but I’m also honest when credit is due.
Better European & Asian transoceanic in J:
Air France
ITA Airways
Austrian
Virgin Atlantic
Air Serbia
Turkish
Qatar Airways
Etihad
Emirates
Singapore Airlines
Thai Airlines
Cathay Pacific
Qantas
Air New Zealand
ANA
Japan Airlines
Starlux
EVA Air
Worse European & Asian transoceanic in J:
Aer Lingus
LOT Polish
Lufthansa
Iberia
TAP
Icelandair
KLM
SAS
Finnair
Air Europa
Royal Air Maroc
SATA
Korean Air
Garuda
Vietnam Airlines
China Airlines
China Southern
China Eastern
Xiamen
Hainan
Air China
Sichuan Airlines
T’way
Philippine Airlines
I’m sure I’m missing some in both columns but that’s how the majority rank compared to DL
air serbia??????????????
I'm not sure if you're just parroting stuff about China bad or actually think these airlines are bad because China and Hainan Airlines are both legitimately good airlines. China Airlines is a Taiwanese airline, which probably confused you.
Call it ScamTrax if you will, but Hainan, Korean Air, Garuda are all 5 star airlines and do offer good products. (And you also forgot Asiana)
Thai Airways probably does not belong up there.