aa73

It’s all about “Brand Perception.”

Delta wants its customers to feel like they are flying on an upscale, classy airline, because they believe those customers will return and eventually start paying a premium to fly on them. (And they do.)

So they employ Brand Perception, starting with everything looking consistent from buying your ticket to picking up your bags. You can see it in the simple but elegant Delta logo... the uniforms all looking very consistent (you’ll never see a Delta pilot missing his shirt wings/name tag or hat, unless it was stolen)... the PTVs on almost their entire fleet... the embroidered Delta logo on the leather headrests.. the LED lighting on the aircraft. Etc, etc. Delta takes this very seriously, and it pays off. They have managed to pull off a genius marketing concept that has propelled the Delta name into a consumer brand.

Even IF Delta passengers don’t bother watching the PTVs/IFE... it’s still there and available. Thus enhancing the brand and experience.

It’s like walking into a Hyatt Regency or Westin hotel room vs a La Quinta. The price may have been the same but the perception is completely different.

When customers step on an AA plane, they may have gotten a good price but their initial reaction is most likely “cheap” due to no PTVs, some aircraft not even having power ports... the inconsistency of the brand, uniforms, customer service, etc.

Brand perception + empowered staff + leadership from the top = successful and most profitable airline. Hopefully AA will learn this and soon.

rcflying53

Based on my observations, I’m guessing most of group 9 folks. But, like you said, should we even care about them? Most are just invaluable seat fillers who couldn’t get a ticket on SWA or Spirit that day.

jcountry

This theory really only works for business travel (which is lucrative, of course.)

No casual traveler gives have a ****. They will drive two extra hours and connect through 4 more cities if they save $3.

Business travel falls off a cliff at the very first sign of economic slowdown. So we will see which works better long term.

ag386

AA 2018 revenue 44.6B Net 662 mil
DL 2018 revenue 44.4B Net 1.4 Bill

There IS something wrong when a competitor is bringing in over double the net of what AA is on the same revenue.

CaseTractor

I dunno, let’s not be rash here. I for one really love playing angry birds. I’m addicted to that game and cannot stop thinking about it. On flights without the IFE, my withdrawal symptoms are almost unbearable. I just kinda stare straight ahead and if you are sitting close enough, you can hear me cackling bird sounds softly under my breath. It’s really quite sad

Arado 234

The casual traveler seems the one that complains the most. I usually don’t like to see unhappy people on our airplanes.

Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t.

aa73

Delta’s profits and #1 ranking seems to prove otherwise...

R57 relay

I get what you say, except the PTVs. As someone else said, when they don't work, that is an issue. My wife is a F/A and flies T/A most of the summer and those aircraft are pushed hard. When the monitors don't work, or are intermittent, it frustrates people.

The rest I agree with, and with bringing your own device we need to provide them a way to charge them. The planes are not clean enough and the passenger interfacing employees are often not happy and constrained by rear end covering managers.

When I'm loyal to a brand it's because I get consistent, clean, friendly service that is a good value, not necessarily the cheapest. But I'm not sure I'm like your average airline passenger.

Delta gets a higher average ticket price. Why? I haven't flown them in years, but my guess is that they provide a better overall product. I asked Vasu how we compete with DL in cities where they have mainline and we have Eagle. His response was that "Eagle has some nice aircraft!" My reply was yeah, they have some, but the overall product is not as good as the mainline(and mainline isn't exactly knocking it our of the park these days) and that is AA's fault, not the Eagle employees. In one certain city we were using 5 different Eagle carriers. Often they didn't communicate with each other and they would cancel several flights in a row.

aa73

Understood... and yes Delta provides a much better product not just in the PTVs but in the overall experience. I just think that the negative of the PTVs not working far outweighs the positives of having them in the first place (usually working.) They are consistent across the board in everything they do, they are almost OCD about it.

That’s why, for example, if a flight is in danger of cancelling due to lack of crew, Delta will go to great lengths to get it crewed using Green Slips, etc... whereas AA would rather DH reserve crews across the country or even cancel in order to prevent from having to pay any extra $$$ to a crew.

R57 relay

Yeah, I agree. And a mechanic friend of mine told me the system they have on the 330 is crap. I think my wife said that the old system we had would allow individual resets, not this one. Even on the LAA 320's I fly we usually have several out of service.

Your above example is the most frustrating for me. The buck stops with Isom and Parker-why do they allow crap like that to happen? They have seen other systems work better, why do they allow angry, pilot hating middle managers to run things like they do? Our pilot scheduling doesn't help most pilots or the company.

I was so frustrated after last summer that I wrote Isom a letter. My conclusion was that so many lower to middle managers were stuck in the past that we could not move forward with culture change. I told him that while I understood the goal of closing the door 10 prior to get the airline on time, our managers were all afraid of using their brains and the power given them to deviate from it. Everyone is afraid to answer and they are always covering their rears. I didn't fly as much this summer, but when I did it didn't seem that anything changed.