I pay close attention to Delta because of the fact I fly them and appreciate good service. But also because I collect miles in their Sky Pesos Miles Currency. So I found it interesting when I saw a report that they had tripled their First Quarter Net Profit during the year they rolled out revenue based mile earning. And in the mean time they announced a 3 percent international reduction is capacity.
First, Delta’s tripling of net profit is impressive (reported Air Transport World). And no doubt sends signals to their competitors. If you were holding out on flying Delta during the 1st quarter of 2015 to protest their move to a revenue based earning program, it doesn’t look like they cared. Delta’s Net Profit tripled from $213 million in 2014 to $746 million in 2015. Just an impressive quarter for them. Hard to argue with numbers.
Second, Delta announced a reduction in international capacity which amounts to about 3% of traffic. An interesting take away from the reductions is the suspension of service to Moscow from the U.S. leaving no direct U.S. to Moscow flights by a U.S. carrier. This makes sense and appears Delta is getting ahead of the competition with more cuts than American’s ~1% cut and no announced United cut.
Bottom Line
I had a great quarter flying with Delta. My on time performance with Delta has been exceptional and service is always top notch. Have you held back on your travel with Delta this year due to any changes or do you continue to fly (or not fly) Delta as usual?
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About The Weekly Flyer
The Weekly Flyer writes about travel from a business traveler perspective. He travels the world every week accumulating points and miles along the way.
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How much of this increase can be attributed to continued lower oil prices though?
“record profits!….better find a way to make skymiles less desireable. See guys, it’s working!” loyalty team
taking away more benefits of elit status WEEKLY are working for them sad for us
I’ve avoided Delta since last year, when they “happened” to have mechanical issues with the first four flights of the day, including my 6 AM flight. Of course, I was informed by phone just as I was entering the airport. I live in a tertiary city, so four flights is a huge blow. I’ll avoid analysis of the chances that the planes truly all had simultaneous mechanical issues, though it seems a wildly unlikely occurrence. Delta offered little assistance and few alternatives, basically offering triple connections, arriving almost 12 hours late for my business trip. I asked about validating the ticket to another carrier, but got a firm no. I finally drove three hours away to fly Southwest. Upon my return, Delta rather grudgingly gave me about the equivalent miles to what I would have flown. Toss in all the crazy bad Skymiles changes, and that convinced me. If you’re being lied to repeatedly, try complaining. If that doesn’t work, avoid the company where possible.
@Christian – they should give you option for refund. Putting you on another carrier can be done, but usually reserved for elites, and true extended delays. Always ask for a redcoat if gate agent cant / wont do it!
DL does boast the highest completion rate in the US, and not sure what the incentive would be to cancel 4 flights since they would have planes and crews out of position, and lose very little money on fuel alone. Would be more troubble than it is worth to try and find flights and make up excuses every day to cancel.
Sounds like yu had bad luck, but DL certainly wasn’t being helpful in making things right.
I guess, Delta has two level of service… one for Diamonds and Platinums and the second for the rest of us. You will always hear great things from bloggers, who are Diamonds and think that we all are at those levels!!! The other airlines are not too behind in service.
Yes, I have avoided Delta as much as I could, however, I am Delta hub-captive. I was 1700 miles away from Gold level the end of last year, but didn’t care to fly Delta to reach that level.
Delta is making a lot of money, because they have reduced capacity and charge ridiculous amount for the close-in tickets. Also, the low oil prices are helping tremendously. They are monopolizing their hubs. I bet, one downturn in economy will bring Delta down like a falling rock because of all the negative treatment building up in the minds of their loyal customers.