00:00 Speaker A
You have really pushed hard into more premium seats. You are in effect reinventing the flying experience. Looking out and I I read that I saw this, I think maybe it was another podcast you did uh with David Novak, um former CEO of of Yum Brands, um talking about the how the the flying experience is changing because you’re investing so much and you can think about investing over the next 5 to 10 years. Like, when I sit in a Delta seat, how will it look different 10 years from now?
00:32 Speaker B
Well, I think I think first of all, it’ll it’ll become a much more immersive entertainment experience. This is something a journey I’ve been on for a long time. You know, we we have 200 million customers a year. on average, three hours a session. They’re all seatbelted in, all facing the same way. If you can’t figure out a way as a marketer to to create value for those consumers as well as for yourself, you’re not very good. And that’s what we’re doing. That’s why we launched free Wi-Fi at scale around the world.
01:05 Speaker A
Thank you for that. And it all works. It works great.
01:07 Speaker B
and it works and yeah, we invested a billion over a billion dollars in making that happen. People wanted to charge, they said, no, we’re not charging for it. Consumers deserve that. And by the way, all those other airlines are now copying and following us for that. But that’s the platform. And then you bring in an Uber, an exclusive relationship with Uber. You bring YouTube TV, you know, into the plane, which eventually you’ll have, we have YouTube now, we’ll have the TV opportunities expanding. There’s there’s we have a digital platform to give people opportunities to see content and and have have marketers, you know have a chance to kind of get exposure to their consumers and take great advantage of the time you’re spending with us.
01:46 Speaker A
You’re even redesigning the seats.
01:47 Speaker B
We are redesigning the seats. We’re bringing all the new, particularly international planes we’re bringing, full 50% of that plane is going to be in in a premium category. Uh, compared to in the past where the premium cabin, the the first class was really a loss leader. Now it drives the bulk of the revenue on board the plane. and you know, so the experience set continues to grow, the the the the lounges that we have, the JFK one lounge, you know, for for for the international traveler which we have in Boston, we have Delta one in LA, we have it in Seattle. Uh the just the airports themselves, people still land in La Guardia and think they they get off, they think they’re in the wrong city and they and I they know you’re you’re this is La Guardia, you know, you we all we all grew up and and realized the the challenges of La Guardia. I I landed there the other night and I I got off and said, wow, this is this is pretty impressive. That’s the future. And those things by the way can’t change. There’s a lot in this industry that moves around. But when you have the real estate and you have the footprint and and people see where you’re going, that’s when they want to join you on the party.
02:59 Speaker A
What happens to the average show that just wants a economy ticket, uh given the premium seat push, like what happens to them?
03:07 Speaker B
We we have that product for them too. We call it basic economy. If all you want from your your carrier is is the lowest price. We we are price competitive with anybody out there. Uh now you will not get a premium service offering. You’ll be probably won’t even get a seat assignment until you get get to the airport. You may be one of the last people to board online. You may not have room for your bags. But if all you care about is is a is a the lowest price and you still get high quality reliable service. It’s not like we are we discount or or dismiss those because those people are our future premium travelers. You know, everyone starts, every million miler starts as a one miler, right? And everybody starts their journey and those people, I’m particularly sensitive to that realize that this is an aspirational brand. This is a brand you want to be part of even young in your journey because you can see where it can take you.