Delta discusses lounge and premium plans, and a presidential election demand dip
Delta Air Lines officially has two business-class-only lounges open after cutting the ribbon last week on its dazzling 10,000-square-foot Delta One Lounge inside Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
The exclusive space features cocktails and meals based on Delta’s far-flung LAX destinations, plus 100% table service and a wellness spa with massage and zero-gravity chairs.
The grand opening of Delta’s high-end LAX lounge came just over three months after the Atlanta-based carrier debuted the concept on the East Coast at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).
With both facilities now open, you could easily eat breakfast at the JFK Delta One Lounge, fly transcontinental in a Delta One Suite, then sit down for a high-end lunch at the LAX outpost.
But Delta has even bigger plans for the concept.
Next Delta One Lounge locations
In December, the carrier plans to unveil a third Delta One Lounge at Boston Logan International Airport (BOS). Its fourth, under construction at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), is on pace for an early 2025 opening, executives said late last week.
After Seattle, Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) would be next, leaders say.
Beyond that?
“Then we have to look further down the line,” said Claude Roussel, Delta’s vice president of Sky Clubs and lounge experience, speaking to TPG from the LAX lounge this past week.
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ATL?
What about Atlanta? After all, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is Delta’s home turf and its biggest hub — not to mention the world’s busiest airport.
“We’re looking,” Roussel said. “Atlanta is also on the drawing board.”
But, no concrete plans as of now.
No international Delta One Lounge plans
Less likely, it seems, is the possibility that Delta might deploy this particular lounge concept overseas.
“I don’t believe so,” Roussel said of that notion, pointing to the lounges offered by other SkyTeam alliance carriers, which are available to high-end Delta flyers.
“We’ve got great partners — Virgin Atlantic, Air France, KLM, LATAM,” Roussel said. “We let those partners work on their own turf, which they know. And we focus on the U.S.”
Delta operates just one Sky Club outside the U.S., at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport (HND).
Eyeing Charlotte Sky Club opening
Speaking of traditional Sky Clubs, we’re just several weeks away from the opening of Delta’s next one — in competitor territory, no less.
As TPG reported last year, the airline is planning its first lounge for Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT).
That facility, Roussel said, is on track to open sometime in December.
Charlotte is a fortress hub for American Airlines. It’s worth noting, though, that Delta is set to fly 8% more seats from Charlotte this year than it did in 2023, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
American’s Admirals Clubs are currently the only airline-affiliated lounges at the airport, though there’s a handful of other outposts, including an American Express Centurion Lounge.
JFK Delta One entrance coming soon
Even before Delta unveils its next Delta One Lounge in Boston, it’s bringing an enhancement to its Delta One experience at JFK.
By the end of this month, the carrier will unveil a dedicated check-in lounge and Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at JFK meant for travelers flying on tickets marketed as Delta One.
It’ll largely mimic the experience customers now have at LAX.
You walk through a semiprivate (and very quiet) entrance, grab a drink or a snack, and proceed to the dedicated TSA checkpoint. Then, seconds later, an elevator drops you off at the lounge.
“Once you’ve done the dedicated check-in, it’s difficult to go back in the regular line,” Roussel quipped.
Mixed results on JFK Sky Club overcrowding
Along with offering a high-end experience to Delta One travelers, the carrier had hoped the opening of the Delta One Lounge at JFK would bring thinner crowds at its Sky Clubs there.
So far, Roussel said, the results have been positive — generally.
“I’m not going to tell you it’s easy to take care of the volume we do every day,” Roussel said of the Delta One Lounge, while offering this assessment of the overall lounge crowds at JFK:
“I’m not saying there’s never a line in [the Concourse B Sky Club]. At times there is,” he said. “But the line is very small, and goes very fast, which wasn’t the case before.”
Read more: A look at Delta’s A-concourse Sky Club at JFK
Full premium economy JFK-LAX rollout soon
Even travelers not flying in Delta’s priciest cabin will start noticing some changes in the coming weeks.
This summer, TPG reported Delta would start deploying its Premium Select product to some of its high-demand flights between JFK and LAX — a move that came with pros and cons for Medallion elite status members.
Now, Delta plans to offer the mid-tier cabin on all its flights between those two airports starting in November, executives confirmed late last week.
“Similar to our international rollout, the initial customer reception to Delta Premium Select has far exceeded our expectations,” Delta President Glen Hauenstein told analysts on the company’s third-quarter earnings call Thursday.
The carrier already deployed the premium economy cabin on all of its wide-body, long-haul international flights.
Pain points: First the Olympics, now the election
In the midst of an otherwise busy summer for international air travel, summer 2024 did bring one major demand downturn for Delta: Paris, right around the 2024 Olympic Games.
As early as the spring, executives had warned the carrier, which has a big presence at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), would take a financial hit as most travelers not headed to the Olympics avoided the city altogether.
That said, Paris travel rebounded, Hauenstein said, “as soon as the Olympics ended.”
But now, it seems, the quadrennial calendar has brought Delta another paint point: the U.S. presidential election.
Delta is seeing a dip in travel interest for the weeks surrounding the Nov. 5 election.
“We can see it in our booking data, because October is doing well,” CEO Ed Bastian said in an interview Thursday on CNBC, noting that this tracks with historical trends airlines have witnessed in past election cycles — save for 2020, when low travel demand amid the coronavirus pandemic kept most travelers home anyway.
“People like to be home during the election period. They don’t want to be out traveling,” Bastian said. “I don’t think they want to be spending money until they understand what’s going to happen.”
All signs point to this “temporary pause,” as Bastian put it, being short-lived: Delta reports “healthy bookings” for the holidays, promising another busy Thanksgiving and December holiday rush at U.S. airports.
To that end, if you haven’t booked your holiday flights yet, now is the time — including award flights you’re hoping to book with points or miles.
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