![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/bb6fdaed23b1853366f0771478e7e3c9e3-ny-airport-delta-loyalty.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Illustration: Zohar Lazar\n <\/p>\n
This article was featured in New York\u2019s One Great Story<\/a> newsletter.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alex, as we\u2019ll call him, works for a global manufacturing company \u2014 a successful one with far-flung clients Alex visits weekly, sometimes aboard a private jet. His wife, who often joins him on the road, prefers a different mode of travel, and Alex generally lets her decide which one they use when they visit places together. That mode of travel is Delta 360\u00b0, the somewhat mythical elite-service tier offered by invitation only by America\u2019s most successful airline.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you keep my identity reasonably vague?\u201d Alex asks. As long as I could, he was happy to share the secret perks that come with the membership. \u201cI don\u2019t want it taken away.\u201d Is it true, I ask, that Delta sends a Porsche Cayenne to pick up 360\u00b0 members and whisk them across the runway to meet a tight connection while the rest of the plane waits to deboard?<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d says Alex.<\/p>\n Is it true, I ask, that 360\u00b0 members each have their own flight attendant?<\/p>\n \u201cYou have someone monitoring you all the time,\u201d says Alex. \u201cOne time the flight attendant said to me, \u2018You\u2019re the most important person on the plane.\u2019 I said, \u2018What about the pilot?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Is it true, I continue, that before every Delta flight the airline sends him a handwritten welcome card?<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d says Alex a little bashfully. \u201cI know it sounds silly, but you\u2019d be surprised what a nice touch that is.\u201d<\/p>\n Is it true that Delta One Lounges are not actually glorified cafeterias with stain-covered couches, free newspapers nobody wants, and the same views of the runway as the rest of the airport?<\/p>\n Alex takes a moment before answering.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me put it this way,\u201d he says. \u201cWe go out of our way to visit the lounges.\u201d He says he would consider flying across the country just to visit the upcoming lounge in Atlanta, Delta\u2019s base of operations.<\/p>\n Delta keeps details about 360\u00b0 vague, and members observe an air of mystery, too. Once, Alex introduced himself to another 360\u00b0er sitting next to him on a flight. \u201cHow did you know?\u201d the man asked. \u201cI\u2019ve never met another member.\u201d The two traded notes. \u201cYou realize you have certain things in common,\u201d says Alex. Income levels, of course. Influence within your company. Also, devotion to Delta.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are people who could have anything,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019d be surprised how far people go out of their way just to stay with the airline.\u201d<\/p>\n Americans tend to hate airlines. But Delta isn\u2019t like most airlines. Through a combination of tech savvy, deft marketing, and opaque loyalty programs, a company that grew out of a Georgia crop-duster operation a century ago has made itself the most unlikely of things: a lifestyle brand. An airline that isn\u2019t just not lame, not just a bus with wings, but an object of adoration, even status anxiety. Its customers aren\u2019t just loyal. They post their boarding passes as status symbols on TikTok. They make pilgrimages to the Delta Flight Museum to buy old lavatory doors and trolley carts. They collect Delta trading cards that can go for thousands of dollars on eBay. And they obsess in online forums over how to secure access to \u2014 then not get expelled from \u2014 its elite tiers.<\/p>\n They also go to great lengths to avoid flying any other airline. Delta has the world\u2019s most successful airline-loyalty program, SkyMiles, with an estimated valuation of over $31 billion, according to a ranking released in March by the consulting firm On Point Loyalty. Today it\u2019s estimated that SkyMiles members have grown to over 120 million; the 360\u00b0 program is estimated to have 5,000 members. (Delta declined to confirm those figures.) While American and United report similar numbers, in Delta\u2019s telling they\u2019re not flying the same passengers. Or, as an executive boasted in March, SkyMiles members aren\u2019t just the top of the so-called K-shaped economy but \u201cprobably the highest end.\u201d<\/p>\n If Delta executives sound cocky, who can blame them? Last year, Delta reaped 55 percent of the airline industry\u2019s profits despite having only 20 percent of market share. The opening of the Delta One Lounge at JFK the year before was followed by euphoric publicity. \u201cWe\u2019re No. 1 across the board in almost every metric in this industry you can look at,\u201d Ed Bastian, Delta\u2019s CEO, said in an earnings call in January.<\/p>\n SkyMiles members are so devoted they barely flinched when Delta did something two years ago other airlines had long wished to but couldn\u2019t: It tweaked the formula of its loyalty program to reward travelers for how much they spent instead of how many miles they traveled. Those passengers, the company had long understood, traveled so often for business and pleasure they would spring for the extra-wide seats at the pointy end of the plane no matter the cost. This was a significant pivot for the airline industry: Profits used to come from the back of the plane, not the seats where people shrug at baggage fees. But it worked, and the competition followed suit. Scott Kirby, the CEO of United, the only airline that comes close to threatening Delta\u2019s dominance \u2014 the two airlines reportedly share more than 90 percent of industry profits \u2014 has openly admitted to having copied Bastian\u2019s elite-centered game plan in the past.<\/p>\n The airlines \u201cwent from making premium cabins attractive in order to get people into them to making economy cabins intolerable in order to drive people out,\u201d says Dan Currell, a management consultant who has written about corporations and data analytics. \u201cThis only works if people are locked in, so it\u2019s a little bit debatable how successful it is in the long run to make the basic class of service an absolute hellhole. But it is definitely the case that a lot of customer behavior is now being driven not by the attraction of being Platinum or Diamond but to avoid the indignity of paying for each checked bag or a packet of pretzels while having no room for one\u2019s knees,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The \u201chellhole\u201d strategy got its first serious stress test in February, when a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security led to panic over three-hour waits at the pat-down line. The year had started with such optimism: Outbound travel was booming, fuel prices were stable, and the airlines didn\u2019t mind gloating a little. But then the war in Iran came, and it seemed that what had actually arrived was one of the industry\u2019s cyclical shakeouts in which airlines either go begging for emergency relief or vanish from the face of the earth. Some of that has come to pass: Kirby lobbied the White House to allow a merger with American \u2014 he was turned down \u2014 and Spirit was doing the bailout dance to avoid liquidation before it finally ceased operations this past weekend.<\/p>\n Delta\u2019s response to the looming wipeout has been to sharply increase prices on popular routes from JFK (say, to LAX), to suspend less popular ones (sorry, Memphis and St. Louis), and to raise baggage fees on non-elite travelers. (A third checked bag is now $200, $50 more than at the start of the year.) In an interview on CNBC after the company announced $14.2 billion in revenue for the first three months of the year, Bastian didn\u2019t show much concern about potential customer outrage over the industry\u2019s biggest one-year baggage-price increase in a decade. In fact, he looked like the proverbial cat with a canary in its stomach. \u201cThe first quarter was a really strong start to the year, despite all the external challenges that we\u2019ve faced,\u201d he said, barely suppressing a grin. Delta passengers \u201care continuing to invest in travel. It\u2019s their priority, and they want to have that experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Translation: We\u2019re bulletproof. Our passengers are immune to price increases, fuel spikes, and wars. What those first-quarter numbers showed was 14 percent growth in revenue from premium tickets, compared to a measly one percent from the main cabin. This is why new planes are being designed to accommodate a majority of premium passengers, the inverse of what planes used to look like when first class was just a couple of rows.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an approach that comes with risk, though. People need to fly, and you can get away with provoking the masses with endlessly mounting fees and shrinking personal spaces for a long time, maybe forever. But Delta\u2019s strategy is built around provoking the rich as well, or the near-rich, people who have tasted the spoils of the system it created. Serving high spenders, or at least Delta\u2019s version of it, revolves around not just convenience and comfort but status \u2014 the feeling of being at the top. And status is never anything but a zero-sum game with room for but a select few. If the back of the bus disappears altogether, forcing everyone to pay higher fares for roomier seats up front, then Delta will have effectively turned Comfort class into the new main cabin.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we see every year is them increasing the thresholds to qualify for the different elite-status tiers. And the reason they do that is, as has famously been said, that if everyone\u2019s elite, then nobody is. They need to keep raising the qualification level so that they can keep the population lower,\u201d says Brett Snyder, founder of Cranky Flier, a website covering aviation. Delta is seeing \u201chow far can they push it before people run away screaming or come at them with pitchforks.\u201d<\/p>\n During the 2000s, Delta was just another carrier stumbling through the wilderness of bailouts, mergers, and bankruptcies after September 11. Customers took to calling it \u201cDoesn\u2019t Ever Leave the Airport\u201d because of its reputation for delays. Like all airlines, it offered exactly one product: a dismal, no-frills voyage from point A to B. This was the Walmart era of flying, and carriers competed on price and schedule using algorithms to match each other.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone saw the opportunity\u201d to stand out, says Currell. However, \u201cAmerican and United always seemed unable to commit, perhaps because of union contracts or culture.\u201d Only one airline made the move: Delta came up with a plan to transform itself, and the first step was to be loved. To do so, it incentivized its flight attendants, customer-service agents, baggage handlers, and pilots to join the company crusade by giving out serious profit-sharing bonuses.<\/p>\n Next Delta had to offer some cool stuff. Currell compares the process to what was happening at the time with malls. \u201cThe middle was Sears, Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, which were destined to be toast because big-box stores undercut them on price,\u201d he says. Delta, meanwhile, offered a frisson of exclusivity, even luxury for select passengers with its meals by Danny Meyer\u2019s company and amenity kits featuring Kiehl\u2019s and Tumi. \u201cDelta really tried to hone in on the kind of Chris Black\u2013Rimowa creative-class set,\u201d adds Colin Nagy, a travel columnist. \u201cIt cracked the code.\u201d<\/p>\n In its pursuit to conquer the skies, Delta also needed access to passengers\u2019 brains. For many years, airlines didn\u2019t differentiate between casual vacationers and high-value business travelers. Service was largely one size fits all because consumer profiles were too coarse to guess who would pay for a Missoni blanket, a second cocktail, or just more room to wiggle their legs. But analytics technology evolved, and smartphones soon opened a world of extractive possibilities. Glen Hauenstein, Delta\u2019s president from 2016 until the end of February, lacks the charisma and flashy tailoring of Bastian, who looks like he was born on CNBC. But Hauenstein is widely credited with plunging the company into the data salt mines to capitalize on the behavior of its customers.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d be surprised how little a retailer knows about you after a transaction,\u201d says Currell. \u201cIf you use cash, they know nothing. Retailers don\u2019t know your name; they know your credit-card number. If you switch cards, you\u2019re a different person to them. Banks know who you are, but they actually have laughably incomplete data on what you spent your money on.\u201d Airlines, on the other hand, can see preferences, such as whether you will spend on direct flights or better service. \u201cThis is the key,\u201d adds Currell. \u201cEvery purchase you make is identified to you,\u201d as a member of a loyalty program, not a card or an alphanumeric code.<\/p>\n Around the 2010s, carriers rolled out \u201cdensified\u201d cabin configurations with thinner, lighter \u201cslimline\u201d seats that reclined less in some planes. Passengers freaked out. But Delta didn\u2019t sweat the outcry. The airline had built an entire corporate strategy on the insight its customers were willing to pay their way out of the misery of coach. And passenger rolls confirmed as much: Fliers buying premium seats surged from around 10 percent of the plane to a third.<\/p>\n While at least one airline (WestJet) backtracked a decision that led to more cramped quarters, Delta had learned to monetize discomfort, charging for things that used to be standard, like snack service, that will soon be available on shorter flights for first class only. In 2015, it rebranded its Business Elite seats as a new, even more desirable and lucrative-class tier: Delta One. By 2017, Delta One passengers could fly in a suite with a sliding door. Coach shrunk as up-front seating got roomier and pricier.<\/p>\n As Delta rose, so did a new parallel currency, loyalty points, which not even economists fully understand. Points cause consumers to act in bizarre ways. They hoard them, then forget to redeem them, known in the industry as \u201cbreakage.\u201d They pursue them as if their value was greater than dollars \u2014 for example, by going on so-called mileage runs, grueling trips to nowhere solely to upgrade their status.<\/p>\n For a long time, it was a mystery why airlines offered miles. After all, a point is a future liability, something the carrier owes the consumer \u2014 which is why, perhaps, it feels so good to collect them. Yet airlines have shown little trouble managing that liability, and when the pandemic shut down flying and forced airlines to take out loans, exposing their assets, the public finally got to find out why airlines like loyalty programs so much: They\u2019re insanely profitable. Some are estimated to be worth even more than the airlines themselves. (Spending on Delta\u2019s SkyMiles co-branded American Express cards is estimated to have reached $8 billion last year.) Analysts say the loyalty programs have taken on a life of their own, turning airlines into fintech companies with wings.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you went to the CFO of an airline in 2000 and asked, \u2018What\u2019s the value of your loyalty program,\u2019 they wouldn\u2019t have been able to tell you,\u201d says Evert de Boer, managing partner at On Point Loyalty. \u201cThey would have said, \u2018Loyalty programs are nice sources of external revenue, but we\u2019re an airline, and this is what we focus on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Today, most airlines couldn\u2019t survive without a loyalty program. That\u2019s because the programs aren\u2019t just profitable; they address the industry\u2019s deepest vulnerability \u2014 its exposure to external shocks such as the pandemic, geopolitical conflict, and government shutdown. Loyalty programs, by helping to keep you, the consumer, enslaved by your credit card, guarantee future business. \u201cThey\u2019re consistent, and they offer control,\u201d says de Boer. \u201cThere\u2019s this whole behavior you can exploit. The gamification around tiers. The way you can incentivize people. You track them. It\u2019s powerful. It exponentially increases the tool kit you have with consumers.\u201d And fliers, de Boer\u2019s research shows, will forego good fares with competing airlines to continue earning points in a loyalty program they are already invested in.<\/p>\n Airlines had built loyalty programs in the 1980s around miles traveled but eventually realized their error: Rewarding passengers for dollars spent was far more lucrative. But nobody could stomach the investment to tie the loyalty program to the existing accounting and booking infrastructure. \u201cData systems are hard, and they\u2019re expensive,\u201d says Currell, \u201cand if you\u2019re on the ropes financially, you don\u2019t have the budget or management bandwidth to do it well.\u201d Delta figured it out and made the switch formally in 2024.<\/p>\n The backlash was loud and angry, and to soften the blow Delta made some adjustments, partly around lounge access, but they were not serious concessions. The company calculated what its customers would tolerate and whether they would flee or not.<\/p>\n The travel writer and novelist Mary Morris, a longtime Delta loyalist, noticed her boarding pass for a flight said she was in boarding-group six, so she called customer service. \u201cI said, \u2018Why am I boarding with six?\u2019 And the person on the phone said, \u2018You don\u2019t have status now. We switched it. It\u2019s not about miles earned. It\u2019s about money,\u2019\u201d Morris recalls, describing Delta\u2019s behavior as \u201cthe difference between capitalism and community.\u201d But she hasn\u2019t defected. \u201cI\u2019ve got too many miles, too much skin in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter Thorp, a consultant for a headhunting firm, is a Delta Million Miler\u2122, having flown 1 million miles on Delta and its more than 20 airline partners, including LATAM and Korean Air. A self-described \u201cmiles whore,\u201d Thorp travels incessantly, aiming to reach 80 countries by his 80th birthday in three years. Recent excursions: Lithuania, Vietnam, and Slovenia with Tunisia on the agenda this spring. Thorp is not a high roller. His idea of a perk is a free ginger ale and a friendly flight attendant. Most of his miles were accumulated while traveling to Rwanda, where he spent nearly a decade working in education. In his case, Delta\u2019s premium amenities \u2014 the Jos\u00e9 Andr\u00e9s\u2013inspired meals, the 19-inch seats, the real tableware, the breathable materials, and of course the lie-flat beds \u2014 are an indulgence for a true road warrior.<\/p>\n \u201cI really love Delta,\u201d Thorp says. \u201cIt\u2019s a loyalty of passion. I feel connected to Delta, and I\u2019m willing to pay the extra money.\u201d He chuckled about once finding a note on his seat from the captain, thanking him for his years of patronage.<\/p>\n Then Thorp got an email announcing an increase in the qualifications for his current status, from 25,000 miles to $50,000 spent on his American Express card. Shortly after he got another offer informing him that if he upped his credit-card spend from $50,000 to $250,000, Delta would bump him to a higher level. \u201cAnd they tried to convince me that this was a good idea,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I actually,\u201d he continues, \u201cand this reveals the kind of person I am, wrote a letter that I\u2019m sure nobody read, saying, \u2018Look, it\u2019s your company, you get to do what you want. However, pardon my French, but don\u2019t fucking tell me it\u2019s a good idea to change it in a way that it\u2019s going to be impossible for someone like me to continue at that level of status.\u2019\u201d Delta never responded. But, like Morris, Thorp sees himself continuing to fly Delta.<\/p>\n If anyone has an idea of how normie fliers would react to being squeezed, it\u2019s Delta. With its trove of customer data, executives know precisely when to customize airplanes to account for shifting travel and spending patterns. Its recent actions suggest flying with it is about to get even Delta-ier. In February the airline published the seat map of its seven newest Airbus A321neos and 44 seats were first class, occupying a third of the plane\u2019s space.<\/p>\n \u201cThe numbers tell the tale of the tape, right?\u201d says Nagy. \u201cThree-quarters of first-class seats are now paid for. They aren\u2019t upgrades. Delta\u2019s premium tickets are growing faster than economy, and they\u2019re poised to actually overtake regular cabin revenue.\u201d That was also true at United, where Kirby, who became CEO in 2020, recently reported passenger revenue per available seat mile from the premium seats up front coming ahead of coach by four points.<\/p>\n Could other airlines go even further? Will we see a day when one of the four largest airlines flies an all-premium flight from LAX to JFK and every single passenger has legroom, metal forks, and full-size bags of Chex Mix? \u201cA couple of airlines have tried that in very premium-heavy markets. It is at best a niche or just a bad idea,\u201d says Snyder. La Compagnie, a French all-premium airline flying between New York and Paris, will mark its 12th anniversary since its first flight this summer, but it has only two narrow-body jets. The majors have adopted an alternative approach that\u2019s easier to scale.<\/p>\n \u201cThe industry is moving toward elite clientele,\u201d says Stephen Milstrey, a veteran airline network planning and scheduling executive who has routed planes for Virgin America and Frontier. \u201cEventually the big airlines will minimize the main cabin and let Frontier and Allegiant handle those people.\u201d<\/p>\n That would complete a major turnaround from the mass tourism that has characterized travel for the past two decades. Now Wall Street demands upscaling because profits are higher at the top end, not just in aviation but in hotels, cruise ships, and ski resorts. And companies are complying. Even Spirit, the former \u201cGreyhound of the Skies,\u201d announced last year after emerging from bankruptcy that it would retrofit its planes to accommodate more high-end customers willing to pay for extra legroom. It didn\u2019t happen soon enough.<\/p>\n Would it be a blessing or a curse to be priced out of the travel market? In Japan, where outbound travel has never recovered from the pandemic, much of the population appears to have decided \u2014 despite the government incentivizing it otherwise with a reduction in passport fees \u2014 that leaving home isn\u2019t worth the price. In the United States, airlines are betting there are plenty of customers to go around. Some of them write their own rules. \u201cYou know, the people who don\u2019t even look at the bill when they stay at Amangiri,\u201d says Nagy.<\/p>\n Some of their seatmates in the back of the plane don\u2019t quite have that power, however, and are stuck playing Delta\u2019s game, whether they realize they\u2019re playing it or not. And they might be operating even more blindly than they realize. The company has told investors that it would be moving away from fixed ticket prices by using artificial intelligence made by Fetcherr, an Israeli start-up, to set fares at \u201ca price that\u2019s available on that flight, on that time to you, the individual,\u201d as Hauenstein put it.<\/p>\n The move struck critics as a way to charge two passengers different prices for the same seat, and several New York Democrats, including Jerry Nadler and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, demanded clarity about the technology. Delta responded to the probe but didn\u2019t back off from using the software, describing its position as \u201cdeeply committed to enhancing the customer experience.\u201d<\/p>\n One Great Story: A Nightly Newsletter for the Best of New York<\/p>\n The one story you shouldn\u2019t miss today, selected by\u00a0New York\u2019s editors.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n