Delta Airlines To Cancel Lie Flat Seating On Transcontinental Routes
Delta Air Lines, an Atlanta-based carrier, decided not to proceed with its Safran Vue seats on its new Airbus A321NEO aircraft. This aircraft is used on premium heavy routes with many business travelers. This is a problem for Delta because its profits come from being the most premium airline for business travelers and from its credit card spend. Delta now lags American and United in premium product for their transcontinental routes. These flights are key to airline profits, with destinations including the following cities: Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Faransisco, Orange County, San Diego, Salt Lake City, and Seattle, to Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, etc. New York and Los Angeles are the largest credit card markets; therefore, this will likely be a profitability problem. Flights between California and the East Coast are among the most profitable routes because of the premium-ticket opportunity, and the older aircraft Delta uses aren’t equipped with competitive, up-to-date seats. Additionally, the older planes do not have enough premium seats to sell. Even if this gets fixed, it will take years to catch up and get those aircraft allowed to operate. Delta has been lagging in its investments in customer experience; the CEO Ed Bastian is famous for promoting “the customer comes first” and investing in the customer. Delta cheaped out on Amazon Wi-Fi over Starlink, cutting food and beverages in-flight, and struggling with operational performance where it matters, with internal memos leaked pointing it out. (link below). If Delta continues its cost-cutting, it will likely face profitability problems due to a decrease in premium and credit card revenue, just as American Airlines did, and it has been fighting for years to regain market share.
learn more about the profitability of these routes at https://www.bts.gov/topics/airlines-and-airports/origin-and-destination-survey-data