Guys,

Check out this analysis of Frequent Flyer programs, I can just see DAL management saying "Thank God for USAIR!" kind of like Alabama is always saying "Thank God for Mississippi" when they come out 49th in education studies (Just kidding guys - I live in SOCAL were English is optional.)

Anyway, what should passengers expect - If they can't get on a DAL flight when they pay $$$$ for a ticket (overbooking) can they honestly be surprised when they can't get on a flight with Delta bucks.

Some of these people act like they just won the lottery when they are bought off of an oversold flight - I wonder how they would feel after reading this report.

OBTW I got this off the DALPA site:


IdeaWorks made 6,160 booking queries at the websites of 22 frequent flier programs during February and March 2010. Travel dates spanned June through October 2010; 10 long-haul routes and 10 city pairs under 2,500 miles were checked to assess reward seat availability.

Overall Reward Availability
Ranked High to Low – Seat Availability for June – October 2010
% Availability
Airline
Program Name
99.3%
Southwest
Rapid Rewards
98.6%
Air Berlin
topbonus
93.6%
Air Canada
Aeroplan
90.0%
Virgin Blue
Velocity
85.7%
Lufthansa/SWISS/Austrian
Miles & More
77.1%
Singapore Airlines
KrisFlyer
76.4%
Iberia
Iberia Plus
75.0%
Alaska Airlines
Mileage Plan
72.9%
Jet Airways
Jet Privilege
72.9%
Qantas Airways
Frequent Flyer
71.4%
Continental Airlines
OnePass
68.6%
United Airlines
Mileage Plus
67.9%
AirTran Airways
A+ Rewards
67.1%
Cathay Pacific
Asia Miles
65.0%
British Airways
Executive Club
64.3%
SAS Scandinavian
EuroBonus
57.9%
American Airlines
AAdvantage
56.4%
Air France/KLM
Flying Blue
36.4%
Emirates
Skywards
35.3%
Turkish Airlines
Miles&Smiles
12.9%
Delta Air Lines
SkyMiles
10.7%
US Airways
Dividend Miles
% of queries that result in outbound and return reward seats
See “Notes regarding query methodology” at the end of this press release.