Get free Delta miles by using their mobile app

by Grant Martin on

As mobile applications take a larger and larger role in our daily travel lives, airlines are starting to respond with their own widgets and tools to make working with them easier. After all, the better that they can facilitate your transactions with them, the more likely that you’re going to return a happy customer.

To that end, Delta Air Lines just rolled its new iPhone/Android app out that should help streamline the whole mobile boarding pass process. Instead of clicking through an email or navigating to delta.com on your browser, the new tool lets you check in, download your boarding pass and keep it stored for future use — without dealing with any browsers or caches or non-Delta tools.

Big deal, right? Anyone can use a mobile boarding pass irrespective of the app, and you’re still constrained by battery life and the whims of the TSA and the equipment along the chain. Fact of the matter is, mobile boarding passes are still probably not worth your time.

Still, an engaged traveler is one that’s more likely going to return (and Delta knows this), so they’re offering a 1,000 mile bonus for any passenger willing to download and try out the app next them they go to the airport. All the passenger has to do is sign up, get to the airport and check in with the app to get the reward, which should be just about the easiest 1000 miles that anyone can earn.

You can sign up for the promotion here and download the app via your favorite app store. You’ve got until September 7th to redeem.

Airline fees are worth more than Facebook

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Outside the travel world, everyone’s marveling at the prospect of a Facebook IPO, which could be valued at as much as $100 billion. So, what are we missing while we fawn over Mark Zuckerberg’s creation? How about the slow, stodgy, ugly airline industry. Known for a painful user experience and a steady decline of free features, the likes of Delta and American Airlines are outdoing the hottest online property in the world simply by annoying their customers.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation‘s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, baggage and reservation change fees brought the U.S. airline industry a whopping $5.7 billion last year. Delta picked up close to a billion dollars on baggage fees alone, which doesn’t include what they yanked from the wallets of soldiers returning home from combat. The largest airline in the country also brought in approximately $700 million from reservation change fees.

American Airlines, the fourth largest airline in the United States, came in second in both categories, with $580.7 million in baggage fees and $471.4 million in reservation change fees.The particular beauty of these fees is that they are basically found money. Some passengers need to check bags, and the airlines have to invest in the overhead required to meet this demand. It’s an expense that can’t be avoided. With this fee, they monetized what they’d have to pay anyway. The same is the case for reservation change fees.

The top five earners of baggage fees in 2010 are:

1. Delta: $952.3 million

2. American: $580.7 million

3. US Airways: $513.6 million

4. Continental: $341.6 million

5. United: $313.2 million

Unsurprisingly, the top five earners of reservation change fees don’t look much different:

1. Delta: $698.6 million

2. American: $471.4 million

3. United: $321.5 million

4. US Airways: $253.1 million

5. Continental: $237.4 million

No doubt, activist groups will be up in arms shortly. And airline employees will lament the fact that their executives are so richly compensated while they have endured round after round of pay cuts and layoffs for years upon years.

Frankly, I offer my congratulations to the airline industry. Yes, they are soaking us. Passengers are a captive audience, particularly on routes with limited coverage, and we sometimes have no choice but to pay. The airlines are using this to generate profitable growth for their shareholders, which is their primary responsibility.

So, what about Facebook? The company is estimated to pull in revenues of somewhere above $4 billion this year, most of it from advertising. It is pretty interesting that the popular social network is annoying its customers as a way to generate revenue, just like the airlines!

Who knew that pissing off your target market was an awesome business model?

[photo by Tobin Black via Flickr]

Congressman talks Delta baggage-gate, supports soldiers

by Grant Martin on

We’ve been following the unfolding events in a story that Gadling helped break on Tuesday where a group of soldiers returning from Afghanistan were charged $200 each to check their required luggage on Delta Air Lines.

Since then, the airline has taken several conciliatory measures and even changed their baggage policy, documenting all of the transition over on their blog.

Now, Iowa’s representation from the 1st congressional district Bruce Braley has jumped into the fray, issuing the below press release as well as a strongly worded letter (opens in PDF) to Delta’s CEO Richard Anderson:

“I’m deeply disappointed by this news that Delta Airlines charged soldiers returning from war such excessive baggage fees. These brave men and women put their lives on the line for our safety and security, and this is no way to welcome them home. I’m calling on Delta to immediately reimburse these soldiers for the extra baggage fees.

“Even if Delta was operating within its current baggage policy, I believe we all have an obligation to returning service members – not just to thank them for their service, but to also ensure that they’re not faced with any undue burden on their return.

“Since being elected to Congress, I have logged hundreds of thousands of miles on Delta – the only carrier serving my home airport in Waterloo. If Delta doesn’t reimburse these soldiers and reconsider its approach to servicing our troops, I’ll have to reconsider using their service.”

Though we’re certain that the airline is already well on the way to reimbursing the service members, Congressman Braley’s support only underscores the importance of the issue. Perhaps he’ll also help forge a better relationship between the airlines and the military so that issues like this don’t happen in the future.

Airline industry best and worst of April 2011

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The most recent U.S. Department of Transportation data is out, and it’s time for the airlines to brace themselves. The good, the bad and the ugly can be discerned from the data, and numbers are notoriously poor at showing excuses (I mean, “underlying reasons”).

So, let’s start with what looks good. Hawaiian Airlines is most likely to get you to your destination on time, leading U.S. carriers with a 94.1 percent arrival rate. It’s followed by Alaska Airlines at 89.5 percent and AirTran Airways at 82 percent.

At the bottom of the barrel, for on-time arrivals, are ExpressJet Airlines (68 percent), JetBlue (68.4 percent) and Atlantic Southeast Airlines (68.5 percent). Think about it, a third of the time, these airlines won’t arrive on time.

Overall, the airline industry posted an average on-time arrival rate of 75.5 percent. This means that a quarter of the time, they miss the mark. It’s almost as easy as being a weather man!The dubious distinction of having the longest tarmac delay was United Airlines flight 19 from JFK to San Francisco. On April 24, 2011, it sat on the tarmac for a whopping 202 minutes. It was tied by Delta flight 1076 from Atlanta to Salt Lake City only three days later. On the same day that flight 1076’s passengers grew restless, Delta flight 1714 (Atlanta to Ontario, CA), sat on the tarmac for 200 minutes. Twins!

Delta owned three of the four longest tarmac delays of the month – and only four flights had delays of longer than three hours. The remaining flight was Delta flight 823 from Atlanta to Ft Lauderdale, also on April 27. It sat on the tarmac for 185 minutes.

According to Google Maps, it takes 10 hours to drive from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale. Just sayin’.

If you flew American Eagle, your flight was most likely to get canceled: it posted a cancelation rate of 5.1 percent. Following were ExpressJet (3.8 percent) and Atlantic Southeast (3.7 percent). You were better off flying Hawaiian Airlines, which posted a tiny cancelation rate of 0.1 percent. Frontier (0.2 percent) and Continental (0.5 percent) also posted solid stats on this metric.

[photo by Brett L. via Flickr]

Delta Air Lines charges returning soldiers for checked bags

by Grant Martin on

A team of returning soldiers from Afghanistan was hit with an unpleasant surprise upon their arrival into the United States yesterday morning. The squadron, bringing a full load of gear with them back from the Central Asia was sacked with the baggage fees in place at Delta Air Lines, which, despite the agreement that they have with the armed forces charged the soldiers extra baggage fees.

In sum, the group spent nearly $2800 in baggage fees for their gear, money that had to come straight out of their pockets.




Obviously a policy is in place between the airline and the armed services that permits soldiers returning from war to bring back all of their gear without cost. What’s likely is that an uninformed agent at the connecting airport didn’t know about the rule and charged the group. Either way, Delta should fix the error and refund the fees.

UPDATE: Delta’s policy states that for military members, THREE checked bags are allowed in coach and FOUR checked bags are allowed in first, so the baggage fees may actually be correct. Whether Delta’s policy is palatable or not is another question, but it appears that the agents were charging the servicemen properly.

UPDATE 2, 11:34PM EST, 6/7: Delta just posted a blog article discussing today’s situation in which they discuss their policy. Specifically they state:

In the case of today’s situation, we would like to publicly apologize to those service men and women for any miscommunication regarding our current policies as well as any inconvenience we may have caused. We are currently looking further into the situation, and will be reaching out to each of them personally to address their concerns and work to correct any issues they have faced.

You can read Delta’s full post here.

UPDATE 3, 12:47pm EST, 6/8: Delta has updated their baggage policy:


ATLANTA, June 8, 2011 – Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) today increased its free checked baggage allotment for U.S. Military traveling on orders in Economy Class to four checked bags.

Delta’s revised baggage policy also allows U.S.military personnel travelingon orders in First and Business Class to check up to five bags at no charge. This change also adds dependents traveling with active military on orders. Each bag may weigh up to 70 lbs. (32 kg) and measure up to 80 linear inches (203 cm), which offers added flexibility over the standard 50 lbs. and 62 linear inches (157 cm) allotment. Because of weight, balance and space constraints, Delta Connection carriers will accept up to four bags at no charge.

For personal travel, active military presenting military identification may now check up to two bags weighing 50 pounds (23 kg) or less and measuring 62 inches (158 linear cm) or less in combined length, width and height without charge.

Previously, Delta’s policy allotted three free checked bags in Economy Class and four in First and Business Class for military members traveling on orders.

Details of Delta’s baggage policy are available on delta.com.

[thanks to reddit user redheaddeb for the tip]