Originally Posted by flyboy2181

Our niche is business travel and upscale leisure travelers. We aim to be Disney not Six Flags.

Originally Posted by Milk Man

which I honestly dont see how, our product isnt that stellar. 5 hr 21 min hold time for customer service today. Maybe business travelers have a dedicated line.

Originally Posted by Gunfighter

We serve alcohol, which is enough of a difference for the business traveler. Remember when Herb Kelleher offered free whiskey if you paid a higher fare? We modified the idea and it seems to be working.

Originally Posted by sailingfun

Revenue is 50% of 2019. In order to be profitable you would need expenses cut by the same amount. Delta is deferring almost all cash flow drain it can other than those like pension funding with big tax implications. As passengers return and revenue comes back to precovid levels Delta will have to return to a investment in people and infrastructure plus fleet expansion and renewal. Tossing all the maddogs and 777’s in the desert was a huge cost savings. Replacing them will cost even more. Delta is effectively operating with ⅔ the employees we had pre covid between the early retirements, buyouts, short term and long term leaves. Delta did a amazing job of slashing expenses for what they planned to be a 3 to 5 year event with plenty of time to ramp up. Instead it was a 1 year event and roared back. The unknown is how much of the travel increase is stimulus money. I suspect however that when that winds down demand will drop a bit but the US covid numbers are looking outstanding as the vaccination rate reaches 50%. When Israel reached 60% they essentially eliminated new covid cases. We are not far from that!
Hopefully a low to no covid rate causes business travel to roar back also in the fall.
The problem Delta now faces is spilling large amounts of revenue to competitors because management cut to deeply into the fleet and staffing both pilot and non pilot. Some of that lost revenue will never return as people book away and stay with the new carrier. The other issue is fares still being very low and how fast they can push those numbers up. I just booked a nonstop CLT to STT for 326.00. That ticket was 650 to 750 for the last 5 years. On top of that the airline dropped a 150.00 off coupon in my mail. Net cost 176 including taxes!