Delta Airlines appears to be on the verge of a first for U.S. airlines: stripping away some of the perks of business-class flying and then selling them back as upgrades. Hints have been flying, and appear to have been confirmed in comments by top Delta executives.
The idea is not new, just new to North America. Some form or another of 'basic business' class has been offered for the past couple of years on Emirates, Qatar, and Finnair, with Air France/KLM taking some steps also and British Air charging for seat selection in business class.
Delta president Glenn Hauenstein told an investor conference last week that "We've talked conceptually about that. I think we'll be giving you more details. … But we're not ready to talk about the details of those plans moving forward. Investor Day this year should be very exciting."
Those plans may go public by next week: Yesterday, Delta sent an email to loyalty plan members saying that "Something Big is Landing on 7/22," with a strong hint it may be this, which the airline will sell as bargain tickets rather than a diminished service level. Likely extra charges might include seat selection, lounge access and refundability.
The new round of fees to be collected could be a boon to Delta which has just reported a disappointing financial quarter; it may expect to upsell some premium seats at a lower price rather than fill them with award flyers. At any rate, fees are important to the airlines; they collected over $7 billion just in baggage fees in the last year.
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