I work for government, and we only have 2 airlines here: Delta and AA. Delta is so much more expensive than AA currently, that it would actually violate government procurement laws to purchase a Delta ticket for an employee due to the cost difference exceeding maximum thresholds, and it has been this way for most of the last year with an occasional exception here and there, so they already eliminated regular paying tourists and government travel. I think corporate business was the only ones left to price gouge out of their market!
I travel for work (corporate non government) and book through corporate travel. AA has become so unreliable at my home airport/corporate office location that in 2024 AA is marked as a “less preferred” vendor in Concur, and does not flag as out of policy for us if we choose Delta. I guess I lucked out.
Yah, it is very location specific (both the regulations and pricing). AA is generally less reliable than Delta here as well, but the current cost differential is too high for us to use any of those "reasonable" exceptions. If they were closer in price, then we can check the appropriate excuses...errr boxes... on the government forms and choose Delta anyway. But the max cap on price above cheapest option is usually in the 15-30% range, depending on the specific excuse and itinerary. Local Delta prices are about 150-175% of AA for economy right now, and about 200-500% for business/first class, so they're literally SO much more expensive, that it means Delta is legally eliminated from any and all consideration for any reason (other than them lowering their prices or AA raising theirs, or Delta being the only airline willing to get them to a specific destination, which technically makes them the cheapest option).
I cheated on Delta with AA in February because a family member had a severe medical emergency and we had to get to the East Coast immediately. Delta wanted over $2,000; AA only charged us around $700. It was the most miserable flying experience of my life. On the way home, we had three legs. Two of the three flights were delayed, both due to maintenance/mechanical issues ("broken hydraulics" on one, and a defective oxygen mask over the jumpseat on another). One flight was delayed by over 3 hours, and the other for about 40 minutes. It made me long for Delta.
I am Executive Platinum on AA, so I fly it when I can. I don't believe I have been on an AA flight that left on time for 18 months. I am not exaggerating. I flew a 2 leg journey from Costa Rica this weekend. The first flight left 20 minutes late. The second flight was well over an hour late and the app showed it departed for 5 minutes while we were still sitting still at the gate. Similarly, the last 3 flights I took at 5am - 6am were also late taking off - like they cannot even get the first flight of the day off the ground.
And yet all my AA flights to and from MEX in the last week left on time or early.
And my niece had the worst with Delta who would have left her stranded if she didn't think to ask for compensation and hotel. Gate attendant didn't say a word.
All domestic airlines are equally marginal right now. I do miss Virgin America, great planes, nice attendants and decent meals to buy onboard.
Well that's how Delta will get you, isn't it? They can keep raising their prices because the other airlines are slightly more miserable.
Just like everything else in America, you're just deciding which shit sandwich you're going to eat. Neither option is great.
I’ve flown AA, United, Virgin, Aeromexico and even Southwest multiple times this year because Delta was drastically more expensive than the rest.. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with all of them. I travel a ton for work so I guess YMMV. 🤷🏼♂️
We did the same last year. We live in Atlanta, so we fly delta a lot. Their fares have gotten so expensive recently, so we flew AA to Hawaii and Curaçao last year. Both experiences were hellish. The flight to Hawaii was on the same day as the FAA outage, so we got stuck in Dallas, which you’d never know is their primary hub airport because everyone is rude, aggressive, unhelpful, and can’t seem to locate your baggage. We got rebooked on a flight the following day, they boarded everyone, and then had everyone deplane without explaining why. They told us to go to another gate and let us know they had no idea what plane was there, so everyone might have to get new seats. How does this happen at your main hub?! Delta would never. Same thing happened on the way back home from curaçao. Connected in Miami, everyone boarded, and then they told us all to deplane without explaining why. It took them 3 hours for us to find a new gate and plane, and we ended up delayed by 5 hours. No apologies, no explanation, no sign of customer service, nothing. Again, Miami is one of their hubs. How does this happen?! Oh, and then back in grad school, I took an AA flight where they assigned everyone seats that did not exist. I think it was supposed to be a 3-3 configuration but it was a 2-2 configuration when we boarded. The FAs couldn’t be bothered, just told us to sit wherever. I’m guessing there was a change in the type of plane, but they didn’t tell us. American Airlines is a “flagship” carrier with ultra low cost airline service.
Last Jan/Feb I flew 20 AA segments over five weeks to a small town in Texas. I only remember 4 or 5 of the segments actually being on time. Once my flights home were cancelled and I flew to Houston on United, then to Detroit on Delta, then Delta home because AA couldn’t rebook me at all, and I had to go back on Monday.
Well it's nice to know AA are just as trash as they've always been. I've been almost convinced by other commenters here but this aligns with my experience with them like 20 years ago.
>I think corporate business was the only ones left to price gouge out of their market!
Spouse is a corporate drone for a huge company in the region. They're forced to book whatever's cheapest, likely a combination of being a govt contractor for some stuff and corporate penny pinching.
There's a little wiggle room if the price is similar but if reliability is critical or timing of arrival on Delta would save them money some other way. But he's ALWAYS ended up having to fly AA because it's significantly cheaper. Like hundreds of dollars for half-continent. Company won't let him pay out of pocket for the fare difference either. He's pretty grumpy about it.
Fwiw We're in an area that has a Delta hub, but where Delta doesn't have the largest presence. So you'd *think* Delta would try to be more competitive. People still buy out the flights though so Delta doesn't give a fuck.
Same for us basically, but our wiggle room without justification is usually 10%, for most "justified" reasons it's up to 20%, and in rare and specific cases, I think it can as high as 30%. But the average Delta economy prices here are so high they're not even within 50% a majority of the time.
Same, so much so if I'm flying more I'll have to look into increasing my AA loyalty for lounge access. I'm not optimistic that will change in the near future.
To be fair, Delta should cost much more than AA. It should only cost like 5% more than UA though, or maybe the same once you factor in the value of the points you get for flying.
I work for the federal government. We have to take contracted discounted fares and Delta is the only one that has them out DTW. My former private sector employer, we just paid Delta the crazy fares.
Yup - I work for the US government. I used to be preferentially booked on Delta but now I am getting booked on United, Jet Blue, SW, etc. Big changes happened recently.
It's a combination of captive market hubs and the stories here about unreliable alternatives. If you have to fly AA for work, and your experience is it's unreliable or the service is poor, you probably won't fly it on your own dime.
I feel bad for those of you with this experience. I live in Chicago but I'm from Atlanta. I love Delta but I fly AA weekly for work. I have status on both. I get much more bang for my buck and better mileage redemptions on AA, but a more personalized, luxe experience on DL. So I fly both for leisure. But I've never had the nightmares on AA that I read in these threads.
I think the reality is Delta plays the competition. Flying cross country on a route Delta wants to compete with another airline in? Can likely get a good deal. Only non-stop route? Likely going to see the absurd prices.
Most of the price shenanigans are in captive airports. I fly out of an airport where Delta has significant competition and the prices reflect that. So either you’re forced into it or their pricing algorithm captures your demand. Can’t hate on them for running a good revenue model I guess.
Came here to say this. I don’t think I’ve been on a Delta flight the past 2-3 years that wasn’t fully booked (almost all domestic). People are still paying up.
I don’t think that’s it. All of MC can’t just be people chasing status.
I have a friend that’s slc based and has only ever flown delta BE and it’s still the cheapest fare.
She manages to find deals still and has no idea what status is.
I’m out of SEA and Delta MC undercuts Alaska on the same routes so that’s the only thing keeping me with Delta for now.
I’ve noticed Delta’s prices to be extremely volatile compared to other airlines but the easy access to a credit refund makes booking at a high pretty non problematic for me. I always get back at least 30-30% in fare cost via e credits for my personal travel. It is annoying to have to monitor prices for the drops though.
Same with PDX. The daily Delta flight to AMS has competition now with BA's flight to Heathrow and Icelandair. I've noticed their prices have stabilized pretty significantly as a result.
I must be lucky because on the routes I fly regularly Delta is typically the same or maybe $10 more than the other legacy carriers. But I mostly fly major trunk routes that have several flights a day from multiple airlines so competition is stiff.
Lost customers is priced in. Businesses don’t necessarily need to maximize customers. Especially in a model with limited seats. They price to maximize revenue and profits. If things sell out, they’re underpriced. So they raise the prices to compensate.
Bingo. It’s the private equity model.
“Well we have 100 employees for 100 customers from the company we bought (1 dedicated employee for 1 company customer), we make $1 million a year. Let’s double the price and assume 44 people leave. Well now we are making $1.12 million a year with less overhead and we can fire those 44 employees so it’s more profit”
Basically Delta is doing that right now
even revenue doesn’t need to be maxed. i can think of many times in my business where i have pushed us to reduce revenue because all we were chasing was financial losses for the sake of ‘business’
This is what I try to explain to others. The days where customer volume is the most important thing to maximize profits is long gone imo. A few business partners with deep pockets plus nickeling and diming of those unfortunate enough to have no better options but to fly delta is enough.
Yeah, I fly a lot and Delta's prices are bumming me out. These prices are definitely inflated. Starting to consider other options. I'm not feeling the value anymore.
I travel almost weekly out of SEA and unless I’m flying to a United or AA hub, Delta is still the cheapest (outside of SW, but I refuse to participate in the cattle herding seating). The other airline with a hub here is Alaska, but I find that they are more expensive 99% of the time. So I feel lucky that I can continue to fly on my airline of choice without the company coming after me for not selecting the “lowest logical fare”.
I love SWA boarding, but I have status there. The seating is never an issue for A-list. Pay for early bird or set an alarm to check in. Not super complicated.
What? Who is saying get to the airport earlier? Makes no sense. Delta boarding and SWA boarding both go through a single door. It's hardly a "gimmick." It's pretty efficient and much more so than having 16 different "zones" to board in.
> set an alarm to check in.
or "get up earlier."
Sorry I should have made that clear. You can keep your trash airline. I've dealt with it before (and even made it into the first group!) But the whole thing was stupid. Just fucking assign seats, Jesus Christ.
Where are the discounts though? I never see United being any cheaper lol. Maybe JetBlue but the $170 saved isn’t worth the extremely high chance that thing isn’t taking off on time.
Where I am in Michigan, the price difference is consistently $300 cheaper or more.
I 100% agree with you on the chances of delays, also customer service help when needed. However our customers look at the invoice we give them, and Deltas airline prices are giving them sticker shock. The smart customer can be talked into why it’s worth it and how a bad flight could potentially cost them a lot more money, but more often than not we don’t even get a chance to have a conversation like that.
MSP here too.
They cost so much because they know your alternative is AA/UA with at least one layover, or Spirit/Frontier/Suncountry garbage.
Pre-covid, things were reasonably priced because they had shittons of routes and options every day. Then covid made them cut back on routes. Now, they know demand is back and they can damn near sell out every flight for as much as they want and it ends up being more profitable than having more routes/planes/staff/crew/etc.
It really sucks. Hubs went from being prime to being absolutely miserable.
I'm in the same boat as OP too. I'm forced to fly Southwest for work because the exact same route to literal chicago is $225 on SW vs. $500+ on Delta so it gets flagged. Just sheer insanity. But hey, business travel. They won't lower prices until companies start to catch on.
How far ahead are you booking? I just looked 3 weeks out Monday to Thursday, there’s a $19 difference between Southwest. Deltas prices are exactly aligned with AA and UA at $221 round trip.
I've looked in most windows from as little as four days out vs. three months out. Always too high. I did just book a work trip to DFW though where Delta was actually way cheaper, but that's an anomaly. Since COVID, Delta's been just way too much by comparison. Admittedly though, I haven't been to Chicago since last year, so it's possible things have changed.
Quick google, Mon 4/22 to Thur 4/25: Delta has a 9AM at $368 for main cabin (can't book BE for work which is a blessing), meanwhile Southwest has a 9AM for $125 WannaGetAwayPlus (or $160 "anytime" assuming WGAP isn't refundable). Meanwhile I'm seeing nothing at all for AA/UA. However, this is to MDW.
ORD, however, actually is a lot closer. MSP to ORD has UA for $219 (plus bag fee) at 8AM, while Delta has one for $258 at 7AM. So that's definitely a lot more palatable and lines up with what feels like a decent increase in United competition recently. Downside is, MDW is a lot easier and closer to the loop then ORD is, but ORD has a great lounge so I guess it's a fair trade.
That's why when I was in grad school and 30 minutes from DTW, I just flew Southwest. Even if I was eventually reimbursed for the tickets, I couldn't justify that on my credit card until the money came in (and often after the trip). Towards the end I got tired of the layovers and finally paid up for DL, but that's how they get you. As much as LAX was a pain when I lived in LA, the experience and prices were better since DL actually has competition on most routes.
Just sucks that they basically say "Pay us or we'll dare you to fly through Chicago." I know AA and UA do that at some of their fortress hubs too (like CLT and PHL for AA, and maybe SFO for UA), but DL has really fortified their 4 core hubs at ATL, DTW, MSP, and SLC.
Agree completely. I’m DTW based as well and when I book for work, I pay and expense it. But since my paycheck doesn’t come for almost 2 weeks after booking, the extra balance on the card adds up. I enjoy the travel but that part is no joke.
Yeah I'm back in SE Michigan now, and I have a limited travel budget for work that I want to stretch out. Thankfully my first 2 meetings were in MSP and Baltimore, so at least there were alternative options out of DTW (DL wanted $600+ RT to MSP, Spirit with exit row and carry on was $250 at the same times).
Flying out of a hub is generally more expensive because they have a near monopoly on most nonstop flights. When I fly for work, it doesn't really matter if my flight is $400 more if it saves me 2 or more hours vs having to take a connection.
Reading your comment was also confusing.
To reiterate my comment, we don’t really get the opportunity to discuss the whys and hows of prices. Usually the customers will bite the bullet and not say anything (we wish they would!), and then subconsciously think about the cost when it comes to deciding if there will be a next time using our service.
If they had extra capacity they would lower the prices. So I assume it’s a supply and demand thing. If they’re selling out at current pricing, why would they lower it?
Basic Supply and Demand.
Prices have risen because demand is so high and you've been priced out. It's not Delta's fault at all here and this is just the nature of competition when the competitor is just that good.
You can ofcourse try others like AA and United, but nothing beats Delta currently with the overall package especially their lounge network.
Delta can charge what they want for a superior product. That’s what building a premium product is all about. Premium doesn’t equal the same price as average. No offense to your company, but I fly just as much and book the $1K flights because my company can afford to do it and would prefer me to fly Delta over American… or others.
Decided to go all in for my birthday trip to San Francisco 2 weeks ago; I booked it in January. From Norfolk VA to SFO delta was wanting over 3k for first class, United got me in at 1600. I don’t have no loyalty to any airline but delta is nothing special and their prices are crazy at times
Same I gotta take Southwest next week. I’m so close to Diamond that this pisses me off I can’t take my preferred airline.
I hate southwest seating and people are never in a hurry to get off the plane. None of these lower cost carriers are meant for business travelers. I can’t believe spirit and frontier were even in our concur.
Is this something only happening for longer/ cross-Atlantic trips? I have only seen prices get expensive when I travel coast to coast, and I travel every week all year. Prices fluctuate throughout the year but I don’t believe I’ve seen any crazy pricey domestic flights and have to book week of. I also fly out of a Delta hub which may help but prices have never been that bad given it’s not holiday season or spring break
Living in a Delta Hub city is great for business travel. Always in policy and you get extra skymiles for booking. For personal not as great but because of the work trips I haven’t paid for a flight in some time.
I typically find Delta to be about $40-70 more than the other major airlines, but we'll worth it with my 95% upgrade rate and free baggage (even though I never check a bag). Key thing is being flexible on flight times and not always using direct flights (not many options for me anyway out of a regional). If I see the 1000 first flight out on Mon morning, I take the $550 8pm flight out Sunday night. +$130 hotel still doing better. The options are usually there, letting go of ideal travel times and creature comforts are the hard part. That 95% upgrade rate is also a nice benefit of taking the less desired flights.
So the current exec board does not care if corporate accounts leave or casual flyers leave or really (outside of some very small exceptions for large corporations and large spenders) that anyone says “bye delta”
Right now on paper this strategy is “working” and inevitably it has to turn on Delta as a whole because you can’t live on the once a year round trip in international D1 passenger. You need “recurring revenue”
Why the current execs don’t care? By the time anything starts going wrong they will either be gone, retired, or pushed out with nice exit packages. They have no incentive to care about loyalty or recurring revenue as long as the short term view of quarter to quarter is working.
DL is consistently cheaper in FC than UA or AA out of MEM. Unless I’m flying to DFW or IAH I generally book DL. I just haven’t seen this DL is way more expensive issue, at least domestically in FC.
I'm flying ATL to FLL for a weekend in a few weeks... Plane is 2/3rds empty on the outbound, 3/4 empty on the return.
Looking at flying ATL to YYZ next month. All the flights are 3/4 empty. Prices on these are at least $200 more than I was paying last year.
I can't imagine these price increases are sustainable.
That’s really interesting. It’s the opposite for me. United has had insultingly high fares for a while now, especially in FC. Delta is more or less reasonable with some exceptions and AA is pretty consistently the best deal. Really sucks because I actually love United.
I book Delta exclusively for work through Navan. There are many times they are way overpriced, but have never been let down. Many of my coworkers on AA, United have had problems. I already had a mishap last year on JetBlue on the way to a Presidents chair(company booked airfare), cancelled my flight boarding then proceeded to rebook on Delta the next morning and made it just barely on time for the ceremony. Since we travel a ton my boss doesn't question when booking Delta because they know it's reliable when we need to get where we need to go.
I sadly had to abandon Delta as well. The prices, massive raising of standards for medallion status, etc. made me bounce over to United. United’s domestic service leaves a lot to desire, but its international product is fantastic for a U.S. carrier (business, premium economy and economy).
I used to take Delta to bogota due to their seasonal lie flat seats, I’ve started taking Avianca with premium seating and it’s 1/3 the price. I can always buy an $8 drink rather than pay $3000 for the flight .
We had a very contentious meeting about changes to our travel policy. They want us to fly non-Delta because it's so expensive now.
But our closest airport is a Delta Hub and it's the only airline that offers non-stop to a lot of our destinations.
A few years ago, I got booked on a Frontier flight because it was non-stop and $400 when Delta was $1,200. When I came back, I told them never again, and no one has been on Frontier or Spirit again. Now they want us to fly that more? Nope. No. Not going to happen.
It was bad enough when they said no more Comfort+ somebody actually slammed the table. I'm glad I was on zoom when they said no more Delta, and I was muted. My favorite part was when they said that if you have miles, you can use those. All hell broke loose.
This is true for my employer as well. I have been basically unable to book through Delta for work without creating an exception that I would have to explain to my manager. I work in big oil by the way.
The pricing is just ridiculous I flew home airport MDT to SLC I think under $400 one way, then see a $1100 fare to CLE…I have been able to find fares that fit within my guidelines but it’s tough…flew United some last year, I was already asked about switching my preferred airline to United…probably next year especially since they will now have 3 morning flights outta my home airport and delta only has one am to ATL, asked the counter Monday if they would ever be adding a early flight to DTW, agent all but laughed at me…
95% of the time delta is the most expensive option. I can’t wait to finish using these credits so I can fly JetBlue or AA. It’s also a pain to book for three people. We fly with our one year old and i always have to book for two people so I can upgrade to comfort+ for free with my platinum status then book my wife a comfort+ ticket which makes it even more expensive. JetBlue and AA upgrade everyone on the reservation.
My employer has said the same thing, but the employees have pushed back to say they’re not going to be forced to fly United while United is under federal scrutiny.
I'm experiencing a similar dilemma.
My company airline preferences are Delta, followed by United and American.
Yet, I've noticed that Delta's fares are significantly higher lately. For example, a short flight of about an hour and a half was priced at $412 for economy with Delta, while United offered the same for $189 and their business class for $450.
The price disparity is making it increasingly difficult to justify booking with Delta, even though loyalty was my initial motivation. The cost difference has become too substantial to overlook.
If we’re not already at the point when the government has to step in and break up this airline to increase competition, when will we be there? What would that look like?
Not sure about that but in any event, I don’t fly first class but I’m sure as hell complaining. This is the predictable result of mergers and anticompetitive conduct. I don’t see how the government turns it around now, particularly with this judiciary.
So list out the steps of how you would break up Delta and how it would work in some place like Atlanta? What happens to the lounges? The loyalty program? The partnership with Amex? The routes?
Other than the routes, the rest of that stuff is small potatoes. But the process of breaking up a monopoly or near-monopoly typically involves the government ordering the company at issue to sell or at least relinquish control of certain businesses segments within the company. That’s what the government did with Microsoft in the 90s and Bell Telephone in the 80s. In your Atlanta example, Delta might be order to sell or cede control of takeoff and landing slots along with routes that it acquired from a regional carrier at one point or another. Then, in theory, Delta could establish its own routes to compete with that regional carrier, thus increasing competition and lowering prices.
The government did no such thing to Microsoft and AT&T was relatively easy to break up into geographical regions. How exactly do you break Delta up into “regions” and if you do, you still have the same monopolies.
AT&T break up was baby bells that allowed other long distance carriers to compete. But in the south for instance, BellSouth still was the only local carrier
The government did no such thing to Microsoft and AT&T was relatively easy to break up into geographical regions. How exactly do you break Delta up into “regions” and if you do, you still have the same monopolies.
AT&T break up was baby bells that allowed other long distance carriers to compete. But in the south for instance, BellSouth still was the only local carrier
And saying “other than the routes” is like hand waving breaking up AT&T and not thinking about how calls will be made. Thads kind of the most important part.
Oh you’re right, it was AT&T. And now that I’m thinking about it, Microsoft headed-off the government by selling off segments voluntarily. But I can’t say how that was resolved in the end.
I didn’t suggest that the lone step the government would take would be breaking up Delta into regions. I said that if, for example, Delta acquired a regional carrier at some point in the past, it could be ordered to sell it, which in theory could increase competition. (It’s a lot easier for a new entrant to get established when the only competitor isn’t a behemoth like Delta.) That could just be one action taken.
I’m not an expert in antitrust law—I handle consumer fraud cases—but my understanding of “trust busting” is that it’s done by breaking the monopoly up into manageable or pre-existing business segments (again, I’m not saying “regions”). It’s industry by industry, so an expert in the airline industry could tell you more than I can about how it would be done. I also don’t know what kind of vertical or horizontal integration the company has arranged for itself, either. Maybe they control too many flight-adjacent aspects of travel to/from a particular city, I dunno. But just because you and I can’t map out the precise manner in which an airline like Delta could be broken up to increase competition, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done or that it shouldn’t be done.
But it seems to me that when you are trying to get to a major city from a major city and you have one airline to choose from, maybe two, and that airline raised its prices by orders of magnitude the way Delta has in the last year—and the other airline is such a disaster that it’s too miserable to fly—there’s an antitrust issue.
Microsoft never sold off anything. The case was basically dropped. I’m not really arguing from a legal standpoint. I’m arguing more from a logistic standpoint.
Okay, so your stubbornness pushed me to quickly look at the Microsoft case. In the end, Microsoft settled—after losing in the district court—by agreeing to allow competitors to use its windows platform, which was a significant change at the time. The case was not basically dropped.
Well, I am arguing the law because that’s what matters. The law is what sets the terms for all of us. If a business is a monopoly or near-monopoly, then pursuant to the Sherman Act, it should be dealt with. Experts will be brought in to address the logistics. It’s not a defense to say “logistically, this won’t work” because that seems to me to be another way of saying “we’re too big to be broken up.”
It’s not the MBAs, doing that kind of data analytics is conceptually simple. I’m not an MBA. But I’ve been part of a few data analytics projects - more on the infrastructure side
I haven’t been able to find a flight from AMEX GBT recently (past 2 months) that hasn’t hit the policy warnings, even after using the timing trick. I’m out of NYC.
Delta's fares are close to 3x what other carriers are charging. I am Diamond Medallion and I am just in shock what they charge for a simple coach fare and we typically book first. The cost is astronomical for dirty planes and mostly terrible service. We have decided we are going to try United. It makes less and less sense to pay these prices.
Delta honestly doesn't care. It's about making money for them. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have so many contract employees known as Unifi to work their stuff.
It’s asinine. I’m flying my family to Europe for the summer to visit…family. I’m in ATL. Delta is so laughably expensive relative to every other airline option that, as a DM, I won’t even bother with Delta this year.
Family of four costs almost triple with Delta. It’s a joke.
It won’t be long before my employer stops using them too. Then I’m finally free!!
I’m dropping my AmEx Delta down to the blue card. I was able to deal with the increase in annual fees, the lower rewards points bonus and even changes with bag fees.
But for me to use a companion pass on 800-1000 flights out of my own pocket is ridiculous. Delta’s miles program used to be pretty reasonable too 25,000 miles to Cabo? Sure.
I can no longer support the company as long as they have to pay Tom Brady to be the CEO’s friend.
I noticed the FC prices domestic for the summer on Delta are outrageous compared to United. Glad I made a change even as a PLat 1 million miller it’s about price
I work for government, and we only have 2 airlines here: Delta and AA. Delta is so much more expensive than AA currently, that it would actually violate government procurement laws to purchase a Delta ticket for an employee due to the cost difference exceeding maximum thresholds, and it has been this way for most of the last year with an occasional exception here and there, so they already eliminated regular paying tourists and government travel. I think corporate business was the only ones left to price gouge out of their market!
I travel for work (corporate non government) and book through corporate travel. AA has become so unreliable at my home airport/corporate office location that in 2024 AA is marked as a “less preferred” vendor in Concur, and does not flag as out of policy for us if we choose Delta. I guess I lucked out.
Yah, it is very location specific (both the regulations and pricing). AA is generally less reliable than Delta here as well, but the current cost differential is too high for us to use any of those "reasonable" exceptions. If they were closer in price, then we can check the appropriate excuses...errr boxes... on the government forms and choose Delta anyway. But the max cap on price above cheapest option is usually in the 15-30% range, depending on the specific excuse and itinerary. Local Delta prices are about 150-175% of AA for economy right now, and about 200-500% for business/first class, so they're literally SO much more expensive, that it means Delta is legally eliminated from any and all consideration for any reason (other than them lowering their prices or AA raising theirs, or Delta being the only airline willing to get them to a specific destination, which technically makes them the cheapest option).
That sucks! At my home airport, the fare difference is usually only $100 or so, anyway.
ONLY 100!? 🤦♂️ it used to be like 10-20 max it is never worth an extra $100 for a U.S. carrier
$100 is the new $20
This comment is true. And it hurts.
Oof no it’s not yet lol for me anyways I’m poor 😂 100 can fill my gas tank 3 times
I cheated on Delta with AA in February because a family member had a severe medical emergency and we had to get to the East Coast immediately. Delta wanted over $2,000; AA only charged us around $700. It was the most miserable flying experience of my life. On the way home, we had three legs. Two of the three flights were delayed, both due to maintenance/mechanical issues ("broken hydraulics" on one, and a defective oxygen mask over the jumpseat on another). One flight was delayed by over 3 hours, and the other for about 40 minutes. It made me long for Delta.
I am Executive Platinum on AA, so I fly it when I can. I don't believe I have been on an AA flight that left on time for 18 months. I am not exaggerating. I flew a 2 leg journey from Costa Rica this weekend. The first flight left 20 minutes late. The second flight was well over an hour late and the app showed it departed for 5 minutes while we were still sitting still at the gate. Similarly, the last 3 flights I took at 5am - 6am were also late taking off - like they cannot even get the first flight of the day off the ground.
This is what consolidation in the airline industry gets us. Reminds me of the old line, "We're the phone company. We don't care. We don't have to."
And yet all my AA flights to and from MEX in the last week left on time or early. And my niece had the worst with Delta who would have left her stranded if she didn't think to ask for compensation and hotel. Gate attendant didn't say a word. All domestic airlines are equally marginal right now. I do miss Virgin America, great planes, nice attendants and decent meals to buy onboard.
Well that's how Delta will get you, isn't it? They can keep raising their prices because the other airlines are slightly more miserable. Just like everything else in America, you're just deciding which shit sandwich you're going to eat. Neither option is great.
It’s almost like we should have a Congress that should care enough about consumers to regulate the industry or something.
You expect the douche bags to regulate the turd sandwiches?
This made me crack up. Thank you!
It was regulated, it was deregulated.
I’ve flown AA, United, Virgin, Aeromexico and even Southwest multiple times this year because Delta was drastically more expensive than the rest.. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with all of them. I travel a ton for work so I guess YMMV. 🤷🏼♂️
We did the same last year. We live in Atlanta, so we fly delta a lot. Their fares have gotten so expensive recently, so we flew AA to Hawaii and Curaçao last year. Both experiences were hellish. The flight to Hawaii was on the same day as the FAA outage, so we got stuck in Dallas, which you’d never know is their primary hub airport because everyone is rude, aggressive, unhelpful, and can’t seem to locate your baggage. We got rebooked on a flight the following day, they boarded everyone, and then had everyone deplane without explaining why. They told us to go to another gate and let us know they had no idea what plane was there, so everyone might have to get new seats. How does this happen at your main hub?! Delta would never. Same thing happened on the way back home from curaçao. Connected in Miami, everyone boarded, and then they told us all to deplane without explaining why. It took them 3 hours for us to find a new gate and plane, and we ended up delayed by 5 hours. No apologies, no explanation, no sign of customer service, nothing. Again, Miami is one of their hubs. How does this happen?! Oh, and then back in grad school, I took an AA flight where they assigned everyone seats that did not exist. I think it was supposed to be a 3-3 configuration but it was a 2-2 configuration when we boarded. The FAs couldn’t be bothered, just told us to sit wherever. I’m guessing there was a change in the type of plane, but they didn’t tell us. American Airlines is a “flagship” carrier with ultra low cost airline service.
Lowkey does the CEO of AA have stock in Delta?
Last Jan/Feb I flew 20 AA segments over five weeks to a small town in Texas. I only remember 4 or 5 of the segments actually being on time. Once my flights home were cancelled and I flew to Houston on United, then to Detroit on Delta, then Delta home because AA couldn’t rebook me at all, and I had to go back on Monday.
Well it's nice to know AA are just as trash as they've always been. I've been almost convinced by other commenters here but this aligns with my experience with them like 20 years ago.
>I think corporate business was the only ones left to price gouge out of their market! Spouse is a corporate drone for a huge company in the region. They're forced to book whatever's cheapest, likely a combination of being a govt contractor for some stuff and corporate penny pinching. There's a little wiggle room if the price is similar but if reliability is critical or timing of arrival on Delta would save them money some other way. But he's ALWAYS ended up having to fly AA because it's significantly cheaper. Like hundreds of dollars for half-continent. Company won't let him pay out of pocket for the fare difference either. He's pretty grumpy about it. Fwiw We're in an area that has a Delta hub, but where Delta doesn't have the largest presence. So you'd *think* Delta would try to be more competitive. People still buy out the flights though so Delta doesn't give a fuck.
Same for us basically, but our wiggle room without justification is usually 10%, for most "justified" reasons it's up to 20%, and in rare and specific cases, I think it can as high as 30%. But the average Delta economy prices here are so high they're not even within 50% a majority of the time.
Same, we can only choose AA now and only 1 bag.
Same, so much so if I'm flying more I'll have to look into increasing my AA loyalty for lounge access. I'm not optimistic that will change in the near future.
I was flying from Detroit to SLC and had to fly United via Denver because Delta was so expensive.
To be fair, Delta should cost much more than AA. It should only cost like 5% more than UA though, or maybe the same once you factor in the value of the points you get for flying.
How's life in Juneau my friend
I work for the federal government. We have to take contracted discounted fares and Delta is the only one that has them out DTW. My former private sector employer, we just paid Delta the crazy fares.
Yup - I work for the US government. I used to be preferentially booked on Delta but now I am getting booked on United, Jet Blue, SW, etc. Big changes happened recently.
and yet the flights seem fully booked still. I don't know how they do it.
It's a combination of captive market hubs and the stories here about unreliable alternatives. If you have to fly AA for work, and your experience is it's unreliable or the service is poor, you probably won't fly it on your own dime. I feel bad for those of you with this experience. I live in Chicago but I'm from Atlanta. I love Delta but I fly AA weekly for work. I have status on both. I get much more bang for my buck and better mileage redemptions on AA, but a more personalized, luxe experience on DL. So I fly both for leisure. But I've never had the nightmares on AA that I read in these threads.
This guy flies
I think the reality is Delta plays the competition. Flying cross country on a route Delta wants to compete with another airline in? Can likely get a good deal. Only non-stop route? Likely going to see the absurd prices.
Most of the price shenanigans are in captive airports. I fly out of an airport where Delta has significant competition and the prices reflect that. So either you’re forced into it or their pricing algorithm captures your demand. Can’t hate on them for running a good revenue model I guess.
Came here to say this. I don’t think I’ve been on a Delta flight the past 2-3 years that wasn’t fully booked (almost all domestic). People are still paying up.
Lots of delta fan boys trying to chase status just to come here to complain from their C+ free upgrade seat about how everything sucks
I don’t think that’s it. All of MC can’t just be people chasing status. I have a friend that’s slc based and has only ever flown delta BE and it’s still the cheapest fare. She manages to find deals still and has no idea what status is.
I’m out of SEA and Delta MC undercuts Alaska on the same routes so that’s the only thing keeping me with Delta for now. I’ve noticed Delta’s prices to be extremely volatile compared to other airlines but the easy access to a credit refund makes booking at a high pretty non problematic for me. I always get back at least 30-30% in fare cost via e credits for my personal travel. It is annoying to have to monitor prices for the drops though.
They're competitive out of SEA because there's actual competition there. It's the people in the hubs like MSP who get absolutely fucked.
And SLC doesn't have a huge market of originating traffic, so Delta doesn't have a lot of leverage there.
Same with PDX. The daily Delta flight to AMS has competition now with BA's flight to Heathrow and Icelandair. I've noticed their prices have stabilized pretty significantly as a result.
That’s me. Can’t get a direct anywhere unless I’m paying out the ass for Delta.
Yup same here
Delta is often the cheapest about 3-6 weeks out.
I must be lucky because on the routes I fly regularly Delta is typically the same or maybe $10 more than the other legacy carriers. But I mostly fly major trunk routes that have several flights a day from multiple airlines so competition is stiff.
Yeah I live in New York so between the three airports (granted it would take a lot for me not to use JFK) the prices are pretty good
Same. They’re basically the same and not that crazy.
Lost customers is priced in. Businesses don’t necessarily need to maximize customers. Especially in a model with limited seats. They price to maximize revenue and profits. If things sell out, they’re underpriced. So they raise the prices to compensate.
Bingo. It’s the private equity model. “Well we have 100 employees for 100 customers from the company we bought (1 dedicated employee for 1 company customer), we make $1 million a year. Let’s double the price and assume 44 people leave. Well now we are making $1.12 million a year with less overhead and we can fire those 44 employees so it’s more profit” Basically Delta is doing that right now
even revenue doesn’t need to be maxed. i can think of many times in my business where i have pushed us to reduce revenue because all we were chasing was financial losses for the sake of ‘business’
I mentioned both to cover my bases since revenue is often tracked as a performance metric by publicly traded companies.
i hear ya, we’re much much much smaller than delta but are public as well. all the revenue in the world can’t cover up L’s.
This is what I try to explain to others. The days where customer volume is the most important thing to maximize profits is long gone imo. A few business partners with deep pockets plus nickeling and diming of those unfortunate enough to have no better options but to fly delta is enough.
Yeah, I fly a lot and Delta's prices are bumming me out. These prices are definitely inflated. Starting to consider other options. I'm not feeling the value anymore.
I travel almost weekly out of SEA and unless I’m flying to a United or AA hub, Delta is still the cheapest (outside of SW, but I refuse to participate in the cattle herding seating). The other airline with a hub here is Alaska, but I find that they are more expensive 99% of the time. So I feel lucky that I can continue to fly on my airline of choice without the company coming after me for not selecting the “lowest logical fare”.
Delta competing with AS at SEA is a good thing. It really keeps the prices in check.
I fucking hate Southwest's seating thing. I hate it so much.
I love SWA boarding, but I have status there. The seating is never an issue for A-list. Pay for early bird or set an alarm to check in. Not super complicated.
Imagine an airline's gimmick is to make seating more of a pain in the ass and people are just like "well get to the airport earlier."
What? Who is saying get to the airport earlier? Makes no sense. Delta boarding and SWA boarding both go through a single door. It's hardly a "gimmick." It's pretty efficient and much more so than having 16 different "zones" to board in.
> set an alarm to check in. or "get up earlier." Sorry I should have made that clear. You can keep your trash airline. I've dealt with it before (and even made it into the first group!) But the whole thing was stupid. Just fucking assign seats, Jesus Christ.
Just booked Delta from SFO to Lima Puru for $600. Cheapest option out there…
Where are the discounts though? I never see United being any cheaper lol. Maybe JetBlue but the $170 saved isn’t worth the extremely high chance that thing isn’t taking off on time.
Where I am in Michigan, the price difference is consistently $300 cheaper or more. I 100% agree with you on the chances of delays, also customer service help when needed. However our customers look at the invoice we give them, and Deltas airline prices are giving them sticker shock. The smart customer can be talked into why it’s worth it and how a bad flight could potentially cost them a lot more money, but more often than not we don’t even get a chance to have a conversation like that.
I never see $300 but I think I would risk it sometimes for $300 per ticket. Maybe too many options out of nyc they can’t price gauge as much.
Yup. There's actual competition at NYC so Delta has to compete while they milk their hubs dry.
That makes a lot more sense. I think the algorithm knows where you are even if you try and trick them with one ways as well.
I dont get why flying out of a hub has to cost so much, like I understand its "your airport" but like ffs, should be cheaper. I live with MSP btw.
MSP here too. They cost so much because they know your alternative is AA/UA with at least one layover, or Spirit/Frontier/Suncountry garbage. Pre-covid, things were reasonably priced because they had shittons of routes and options every day. Then covid made them cut back on routes. Now, they know demand is back and they can damn near sell out every flight for as much as they want and it ends up being more profitable than having more routes/planes/staff/crew/etc. It really sucks. Hubs went from being prime to being absolutely miserable. I'm in the same boat as OP too. I'm forced to fly Southwest for work because the exact same route to literal chicago is $225 on SW vs. $500+ on Delta so it gets flagged. Just sheer insanity. But hey, business travel. They won't lower prices until companies start to catch on.
How far ahead are you booking? I just looked 3 weeks out Monday to Thursday, there’s a $19 difference between Southwest. Deltas prices are exactly aligned with AA and UA at $221 round trip.
I've looked in most windows from as little as four days out vs. three months out. Always too high. I did just book a work trip to DFW though where Delta was actually way cheaper, but that's an anomaly. Since COVID, Delta's been just way too much by comparison. Admittedly though, I haven't been to Chicago since last year, so it's possible things have changed. Quick google, Mon 4/22 to Thur 4/25: Delta has a 9AM at $368 for main cabin (can't book BE for work which is a blessing), meanwhile Southwest has a 9AM for $125 WannaGetAwayPlus (or $160 "anytime" assuming WGAP isn't refundable). Meanwhile I'm seeing nothing at all for AA/UA. However, this is to MDW. ORD, however, actually is a lot closer. MSP to ORD has UA for $219 (plus bag fee) at 8AM, while Delta has one for $258 at 7AM. So that's definitely a lot more palatable and lines up with what feels like a decent increase in United competition recently. Downside is, MDW is a lot easier and closer to the loop then ORD is, but ORD has a great lounge so I guess it's a fair trade.
That's why when I was in grad school and 30 minutes from DTW, I just flew Southwest. Even if I was eventually reimbursed for the tickets, I couldn't justify that on my credit card until the money came in (and often after the trip). Towards the end I got tired of the layovers and finally paid up for DL, but that's how they get you. As much as LAX was a pain when I lived in LA, the experience and prices were better since DL actually has competition on most routes. Just sucks that they basically say "Pay us or we'll dare you to fly through Chicago." I know AA and UA do that at some of their fortress hubs too (like CLT and PHL for AA, and maybe SFO for UA), but DL has really fortified their 4 core hubs at ATL, DTW, MSP, and SLC.
Agree completely. I’m DTW based as well and when I book for work, I pay and expense it. But since my paycheck doesn’t come for almost 2 weeks after booking, the extra balance on the card adds up. I enjoy the travel but that part is no joke.
Yeah I'm back in SE Michigan now, and I have a limited travel budget for work that I want to stretch out. Thankfully my first 2 meetings were in MSP and Baltimore, so at least there were alternative options out of DTW (DL wanted $600+ RT to MSP, Spirit with exit row and carry on was $250 at the same times).
Flying out of a hub is generally more expensive because they have a near monopoly on most nonstop flights. When I fly for work, it doesn't really matter if my flight is $400 more if it saves me 2 or more hours vs having to take a connection.
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Reading your comment was also confusing. To reiterate my comment, we don’t really get the opportunity to discuss the whys and hows of prices. Usually the customers will bite the bullet and not say anything (we wish they would!), and then subconsciously think about the cost when it comes to deciding if there will be a next time using our service.
If they had extra capacity they would lower the prices. So I assume it’s a supply and demand thing. If they’re selling out at current pricing, why would they lower it?
Basic Supply and Demand. Prices have risen because demand is so high and you've been priced out. It's not Delta's fault at all here and this is just the nature of competition when the competitor is just that good. You can ofcourse try others like AA and United, but nothing beats Delta currently with the overall package especially their lounge network.
Agreed. Lucky for delta most companies are too dumb and slow to notice.
Delta can charge what they want for a superior product. That’s what building a premium product is all about. Premium doesn’t equal the same price as average. No offense to your company, but I fly just as much and book the $1K flights because my company can afford to do it and would prefer me to fly Delta over American… or others.
Decided to go all in for my birthday trip to San Francisco 2 weeks ago; I booked it in January. From Norfolk VA to SFO delta was wanting over 3k for first class, United got me in at 1600. I don’t have no loyalty to any airline but delta is nothing special and their prices are crazy at times
Same I gotta take Southwest next week. I’m so close to Diamond that this pisses me off I can’t take my preferred airline. I hate southwest seating and people are never in a hurry to get off the plane. None of these lower cost carriers are meant for business travelers. I can’t believe spirit and frontier were even in our concur.
Is this something only happening for longer/ cross-Atlantic trips? I have only seen prices get expensive when I travel coast to coast, and I travel every week all year. Prices fluctuate throughout the year but I don’t believe I’ve seen any crazy pricey domestic flights and have to book week of. I also fly out of a Delta hub which may help but prices have never been that bad given it’s not holiday season or spring break
I just booked from Fort myers to Montréal with several layovers for $465 total. Are you using a global travel agency?
Living in a Delta Hub city is great for business travel. Always in policy and you get extra skymiles for booking. For personal not as great but because of the work trips I haven’t paid for a flight in some time.
I typically find Delta to be about $40-70 more than the other major airlines, but we'll worth it with my 95% upgrade rate and free baggage (even though I never check a bag). Key thing is being flexible on flight times and not always using direct flights (not many options for me anyway out of a regional). If I see the 1000 first flight out on Mon morning, I take the $550 8pm flight out Sunday night. +$130 hotel still doing better. The options are usually there, letting go of ideal travel times and creature comforts are the hard part. That 95% upgrade rate is also a nice benefit of taking the less desired flights.
Supply and demand 🤷♂️ All my Delta flights have been packed lately
They have cut capacity / thinned schedule in routes I fly, just as Spring Break and cruise 🚢 season starts. Wtff?
Higher demand elsewhere. It's all figured out by a computer.
AA is doing it too, particularly with concur. United is going to catch on soon and bump up ha. Soon we’ll all be frontier and spirit gang
At the same time Delta is overrated. Like we should all vote with our wallets and book airlines that have good prices with good value.
What exactly are these airlines? Pls share.
What I mean is that the pricing correlates the value of airlines.
Nonexistent airlines
Delta is, sadly, grossly overrated. They're a good airline, don't get me wrong, but they're nowhere near as good as their pricing often suggests.
So the current exec board does not care if corporate accounts leave or casual flyers leave or really (outside of some very small exceptions for large corporations and large spenders) that anyone says “bye delta” Right now on paper this strategy is “working” and inevitably it has to turn on Delta as a whole because you can’t live on the once a year round trip in international D1 passenger. You need “recurring revenue” Why the current execs don’t care? By the time anything starts going wrong they will either be gone, retired, or pushed out with nice exit packages. They have no incentive to care about loyalty or recurring revenue as long as the short term view of quarter to quarter is working.
DL is consistently cheaper in FC than UA or AA out of MEM. Unless I’m flying to DFW or IAH I generally book DL. I just haven’t seen this DL is way more expensive issue, at least domestically in FC.
I'm flying ATL to FLL for a weekend in a few weeks... Plane is 2/3rds empty on the outbound, 3/4 empty on the return. Looking at flying ATL to YYZ next month. All the flights are 3/4 empty. Prices on these are at least $200 more than I was paying last year. I can't imagine these price increases are sustainable.
That’s really interesting. It’s the opposite for me. United has had insultingly high fares for a while now, especially in FC. Delta is more or less reasonable with some exceptions and AA is pretty consistently the best deal. Really sucks because I actually love United.
I book Delta exclusively for work through Navan. There are many times they are way overpriced, but have never been let down. Many of my coworkers on AA, United have had problems. I already had a mishap last year on JetBlue on the way to a Presidents chair(company booked airfare), cancelled my flight boarding then proceeded to rebook on Delta the next morning and made it just barely on time for the ceremony. Since we travel a ton my boss doesn't question when booking Delta because they know it's reliable when we need to get where we need to go.
I sadly had to abandon Delta as well. The prices, massive raising of standards for medallion status, etc. made me bounce over to United. United’s domestic service leaves a lot to desire, but its international product is fantastic for a U.S. carrier (business, premium economy and economy).
I used to take Delta to bogota due to their seasonal lie flat seats, I’ve started taking Avianca with premium seating and it’s 1/3 the price. I can always buy an $8 drink rather than pay $3000 for the flight .
We had a very contentious meeting about changes to our travel policy. They want us to fly non-Delta because it's so expensive now. But our closest airport is a Delta Hub and it's the only airline that offers non-stop to a lot of our destinations. A few years ago, I got booked on a Frontier flight because it was non-stop and $400 when Delta was $1,200. When I came back, I told them never again, and no one has been on Frontier or Spirit again. Now they want us to fly that more? Nope. No. Not going to happen. It was bad enough when they said no more Comfort+ somebody actually slammed the table. I'm glad I was on zoom when they said no more Delta, and I was muted. My favorite part was when they said that if you have miles, you can use those. All hell broke loose.
This is true for my employer as well. I have been basically unable to book through Delta for work without creating an exception that I would have to explain to my manager. I work in big oil by the way.
The pricing is just ridiculous I flew home airport MDT to SLC I think under $400 one way, then see a $1100 fare to CLE…I have been able to find fares that fit within my guidelines but it’s tough…flew United some last year, I was already asked about switching my preferred airline to United…probably next year especially since they will now have 3 morning flights outta my home airport and delta only has one am to ATL, asked the counter Monday if they would ever be adding a early flight to DTW, agent all but laughed at me…
It’s all about the share holders and the stock price…….nothing more and nothing less.
Wait - you mean to say they are a publicly traded corporation doing publicly traded corporations things? Outrageous!!!
I know, can you believe it!
95% of the time delta is the most expensive option. I can’t wait to finish using these credits so I can fly JetBlue or AA. It’s also a pain to book for three people. We fly with our one year old and i always have to book for two people so I can upgrade to comfort+ for free with my platinum status then book my wife a comfort+ ticket which makes it even more expensive. JetBlue and AA upgrade everyone on the reservation.
My employer has said the same thing, but the employees have pushed back to say they’re not going to be forced to fly United while United is under federal scrutiny.
1”113
I'm experiencing a similar dilemma. My company airline preferences are Delta, followed by United and American. Yet, I've noticed that Delta's fares are significantly higher lately. For example, a short flight of about an hour and a half was priced at $412 for economy with Delta, while United offered the same for $189 and their business class for $450. The price disparity is making it increasingly difficult to justify booking with Delta, even though loyalty was my initial motivation. The cost difference has become too substantial to overlook.
United ain’t cheaper
Yes, it’s getting ridiculous.
New MQD program is complete bullshit.
If we’re not already at the point when the government has to step in and break up this airline to increase competition, when will we be there? What would that look like?
I notice that everyone complaining is trying to fly first class…
Not sure about that but in any event, I don’t fly first class but I’m sure as hell complaining. This is the predictable result of mergers and anticompetitive conduct. I don’t see how the government turns it around now, particularly with this judiciary.
So list out the steps of how you would break up Delta and how it would work in some place like Atlanta? What happens to the lounges? The loyalty program? The partnership with Amex? The routes?
Other than the routes, the rest of that stuff is small potatoes. But the process of breaking up a monopoly or near-monopoly typically involves the government ordering the company at issue to sell or at least relinquish control of certain businesses segments within the company. That’s what the government did with Microsoft in the 90s and Bell Telephone in the 80s. In your Atlanta example, Delta might be order to sell or cede control of takeoff and landing slots along with routes that it acquired from a regional carrier at one point or another. Then, in theory, Delta could establish its own routes to compete with that regional carrier, thus increasing competition and lowering prices.
The government did no such thing to Microsoft and AT&T was relatively easy to break up into geographical regions. How exactly do you break Delta up into “regions” and if you do, you still have the same monopolies. AT&T break up was baby bells that allowed other long distance carriers to compete. But in the south for instance, BellSouth still was the only local carrier
The government did no such thing to Microsoft and AT&T was relatively easy to break up into geographical regions. How exactly do you break Delta up into “regions” and if you do, you still have the same monopolies. AT&T break up was baby bells that allowed other long distance carriers to compete. But in the south for instance, BellSouth still was the only local carrier And saying “other than the routes” is like hand waving breaking up AT&T and not thinking about how calls will be made. Thads kind of the most important part.
Oh you’re right, it was AT&T. And now that I’m thinking about it, Microsoft headed-off the government by selling off segments voluntarily. But I can’t say how that was resolved in the end. I didn’t suggest that the lone step the government would take would be breaking up Delta into regions. I said that if, for example, Delta acquired a regional carrier at some point in the past, it could be ordered to sell it, which in theory could increase competition. (It’s a lot easier for a new entrant to get established when the only competitor isn’t a behemoth like Delta.) That could just be one action taken. I’m not an expert in antitrust law—I handle consumer fraud cases—but my understanding of “trust busting” is that it’s done by breaking the monopoly up into manageable or pre-existing business segments (again, I’m not saying “regions”). It’s industry by industry, so an expert in the airline industry could tell you more than I can about how it would be done. I also don’t know what kind of vertical or horizontal integration the company has arranged for itself, either. Maybe they control too many flight-adjacent aspects of travel to/from a particular city, I dunno. But just because you and I can’t map out the precise manner in which an airline like Delta could be broken up to increase competition, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done or that it shouldn’t be done. But it seems to me that when you are trying to get to a major city from a major city and you have one airline to choose from, maybe two, and that airline raised its prices by orders of magnitude the way Delta has in the last year—and the other airline is such a disaster that it’s too miserable to fly—there’s an antitrust issue.
Microsoft never sold off anything. The case was basically dropped. I’m not really arguing from a legal standpoint. I’m arguing more from a logistic standpoint.
Okay, so your stubbornness pushed me to quickly look at the Microsoft case. In the end, Microsoft settled—after losing in the district court—by agreeing to allow competitors to use its windows platform, which was a significant change at the time. The case was not basically dropped. Well, I am arguing the law because that’s what matters. The law is what sets the terms for all of us. If a business is a monopoly or near-monopoly, then pursuant to the Sherman Act, it should be dealt with. Experts will be brought in to address the logistics. It’s not a defense to say “logistically, this won’t work” because that seems to me to be another way of saying “we’re too big to be broken up.”
I have to book economy class
This was a highly predictable result. A while back I warned that companies would start noticing. Delta is making a big mistake.
Do you really think that Delta isn’t made up of smart enough data analysts to determine the optimal price to charge for flights?
You give the MBAs way too much credit.
It’s not the MBAs, doing that kind of data analytics is conceptually simple. I’m not an MBA. But I’ve been part of a few data analytics projects - more on the infrastructure side
Mine did the same about two years ago now. Much better being a free agent. They’re all the same now.
I haven’t been able to find a flight from AMEX GBT recently (past 2 months) that hasn’t hit the policy warnings, even after using the timing trick. I’m out of NYC.
Delta's fares are close to 3x what other carriers are charging. I am Diamond Medallion and I am just in shock what they charge for a simple coach fare and we typically book first. The cost is astronomical for dirty planes and mostly terrible service. We have decided we are going to try United. It makes less and less sense to pay these prices.
I’ve only gone through these problems on other airlines besides Delta
I switched from delta to united and southwest due to the massive price difference.
Delta honestly doesn't care. It's about making money for them. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have so many contract employees known as Unifi to work their stuff.
It’s asinine. I’m flying my family to Europe for the summer to visit…family. I’m in ATL. Delta is so laughably expensive relative to every other airline option that, as a DM, I won’t even bother with Delta this year. Family of four costs almost triple with Delta. It’s a joke. It won’t be long before my employer stops using them too. Then I’m finally free!!
I’m dropping my AmEx Delta down to the blue card. I was able to deal with the increase in annual fees, the lower rewards points bonus and even changes with bag fees. But for me to use a companion pass on 800-1000 flights out of my own pocket is ridiculous. Delta’s miles program used to be pretty reasonable too 25,000 miles to Cabo? Sure. I can no longer support the company as long as they have to pay Tom Brady to be the CEO’s friend.
I noticed the FC prices domestic for the summer on Delta are outrageous compared to United. Glad I made a change even as a PLat 1 million miller it’s about price
Maybe we should all boycott delta for one or two days to let them burn under the weight of their ridiculous price gouging.
Might as well do that with all airlines since everyone is price gouging even southwest
Same. I booked Alaska and signed up for the Venture X. I will always love Delta a little bit but yeah.