Doesn't your company have a reasonableness limit? We have to chose the lowest fare within $100. I would hate not to be able to choose my times or airport. I certainly won't take a 5:30am flight to save my company $50.
Is my company unique with this policy?

 

I am not being forced to take the 5:30am flight (the next morning) to save money. The latest flight the night before leaves at 5:20pm and for me to be able to catch that means I have to leave the client site about 2:30pm and the client objects to that. If I could get a late night flight, even if it was several hundred dollars more, my company would not object.

 

I think my company has a bizarre travel policy.

On the one hand, we must take the lowest fare that meet certain criteria; exceptions shall be reported to management (hear that whip cracking?)

On the other hand, the choices that meet these criteria are as follows:

Contract carrier (there are four, of which one is DL, though oddly enough not its codeshare partner NW)

AND

Non-stop

AND

meets your departure and arrival time windows (about 4 hours I think)

AND

is not a turboprop

The no turboprops rule sure is odd. Criminy, I work in the insurance industry, where you would think risk analysis would eliminate such a silly criteria. Alas, the risk analyis people are selling reinsurance contracts, not writing travel policies.

So, what this means is that if I needed to fly GSP-IAD and observed the following:

US Airways Dash-8 turboprop to CLT connecting to IAD for $175
UA CRJ non-stop to IAD for $1,500

I could take the $1,500 flight and I meet travel policy. Now that is stupid.

In fact, just to demonstrate the absurdity of it all, sometimes I will intentionally choose a connecting flight that includes a turboprop for exactly the same fare, and certainly if it's less. Turboprops are kinda fun.

 

Here's an idea: fly NW to DEN leaving MSP at 9:30 PM, two hour layover, then Delta to ATL leaving DEN at 12:40 AM, connecting in ATL and arriving MLB at 9:55 AM.

You arrive MLB two hours earlier than waiting until the next morning to leave MSP. You avoid one hotel room-night, and you collect more MQMs and SkyMiles. Is that a winner or what?

In fact, you should have enough time to leave (STC? I don't remember) and connect in MSP on the way to DEN.

 

I'm not sure if I can agree with you Cholula about grouping the business traveller with the cost-concuous non-business travellers. I work for an extremely large corporation, who's air travel budget alone is several hundred million dollars annually. We are required to use a designated travel agency, and (within certain parameters), that agency is required to book us on the least expensive flight offered by one of our preferred airline carriers. We've negotiated some pretty good rates with our preferred airline carriers, and an assurance of a cut of our business is worth something to them. The difference between us (business travellers) and cost-concuous non-business travellers is that we can offer the guarantee of a certain amount of volume to the airlines.

 

Delta has a fractional program that offers SkyMiles and MQMs! AirElite

 

What he said!

I am forced to use a corporate travel agency, but there is some leeway. That allows me to select Delta almost every time - although that sometimes involves running multiple airport and takeoff time scenarios before I ticket.

But lately, what does that get me? The few F seats are filled. What do I want? More seats in F. When do I want it? Now.

Geez, really takes me back to the 60's.

 

JS, that is an excellent idea, these are the things I like to read about in FlyerTalk! Thank you so much for suggesting this. I have to get up so early to get a 5:30am flight that I might as well be in the air all night. When I get home on Fridays after a 5:30am flight, I sleep a few hours, so getting home 3 hours earlier will help.

What does STC mean?

 

Your wish just might come true, Cholula:

Delta Says Plan Will Turn It Around

 

Yeah, they have but as far as i know, they are only available to or through ATL. And I fly lots of places on DL that doesn’t include an ATL connection. So my suggestion is to set up a A fare option to ALL the places DL flies so they can pry a few hundred incremental $$’s out of my and other’s pockets.

I guess the point I’m making is that DL can’t FOCUS on the business customer who has little or no leeway to buy a substantially higher fare. I’m not suggesting they ignore this customer...they need to offer a degree of incentive to get these folks to select DL. But the “pretty good rate” your agency and others have negotiated is evidently not sufficient to turn DL’s finances from red to black.
The universe of FF’s who are willing to part with several hundred dollars more per flight has to be in the 10’s or 100’s of thousands. I’m suggesting DL identify these people and upgrade their FC offering sufficiently to attract them.

 

St. Cloud, MN


Even if it's a million people, many of them will not switch and many of them already fly Delta. Compared to the tens of millions of "nobody" Delta passengers, you're talking about something on the order of one or two people per flight. There is no way those few people will part with enough money to upgrade the flying experience for everyone else.

 

I agree with most of what you say here, Cholula.
I'm a GM (will be PM by Sept) and my wife is a PM. We are perfectly willing to buy FC A fares domestically and BE (I) fares internationally when they are available, and we have been. We are certainly willing to pay that much of a premium to sit in the "front." We fly to SFO regularly and have been buying A fares regularly. But here's the problem, by way of an example. We love PDX and would go out there for some long weekends if DAL offered that type of fare in that market. But because they don't have competition they just give some $2500 FC option that we won't buy (and thererfore we don't go). And I doubt they're filling FC with a bunch of folks who do. This is an example of DAL being reactive, not proactive. They only go after the folks you're talking about if they are forced to by someone like Air Tran competing in a specific market.
And unless the product is preceived as worth it, it won't matter anyway.

I've posted on this forum before that DAL is not going to survive if it only tries to mimic or copy the discounters (LUV, JBLU, etc). They won't win that game, even in a bankruptcy reorganization. They need to compete for the leisure traveler, but their only chance of surviving and thriving is to also attract folks like you and I are talking about (and a few of the fat cats as well). In other words, they need to attract a variety of market segments. My analogy still applies that Bloomingdales isn't going to beat Wal Mart or Target at their own game. This really applies to most, if not all, of the other legacy carriers as well.

 

Cholula,you make some good points. Does DL quit trying to be WN with minimal service and amenities or does it make itself attractive to the higher-dollar passenger?

I think part of DL's probs were it has been trying to be a little bit of both...

They've made some strides in improvements, such as making more meals available, selling food in coach, and making it easier for the higher-dollar traveller to upgrade.

IMHO, if they go for the $$$, they need to substantially improve the travel experience for these pax.

If only they'd stepped up to the plate and gone for the gold when all the other airlines post-9/11 were cutting back, they might have really distinguished their product!

Thanks for an interesting post.

 

Well, Delta Air Lines needs to do something soon.

I was recently in First Class on a flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta where my side of the armrest had graffiti on it! It was reminiscent of my days commuting on the New York City subway system back in the 1970s and 1980s.

The graffiti was:...or something like that, written in black magic marker.

Additionally, the backs of the seats on this MD-88 were simply disgusting, both in terms of cleanliness and in terms of age.

Of course, there was no food served, save for the basket of pretzels, Biscoff cookies and snack mix.

One positive about this flight was the attentive flight attendants.

I paid an A fare for this flight, yet I wondered if it was really worth it — and I certainly could not have been the only person wondering about this...

 

Canarsie...I’m fixated on the meaning of this graffiti...!
What the hell message was the graffiti “artist” trying to convey?
I have to assume whoever was in that FC seat was not some knucklehead that just ended up there but someone who was reasonably intelligent and who felt the need to communicate, caveman-style, an important message.
The question is: WHAT WAS THAT MESSAGE??
Or will this be a question for which there is never an answer?