Travelfli Meetings: Delta Airlines
Our second meeting in Atlanta took place at the Delta Airlines World Headquarters. As we all know, Delta is in the midst of merging with NWA to become the largest carrier in the world. The merger is awaiting approval of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is presumed to close by the end of the year.
The general mood at Delta seemed upbeat in comparison (I can imagine) to employees at many of the other airlines struggling to stay afloat. However, the employment threat is still present because the merger will likely result in a fair amount of downsizing to eliminate overlapping jobs.
We had the opportunity to meet with the distribution side of the house as well as with several folks from the SkyMiles Program. Gary Burton, the Program Manager for Sales & Distribution, handles the GDS relationships as well as the partnerships with online travel agencies and meta search engines. Charle Morris and Zack Wallin manage SkyMiles partnerships, and Frances Egan is the Director of Business Development for Delta Loyalty Management Services.
It was interesting to see how two very different divisions approach the Delta product and plan for success. Although their action steps differed substantially, they were all focused on clear goals directly tied to generating revenue and increasing ticket sales.
To our delight, our Delta friends were excited about Travelfli, particularly in our ability to provide them with an economical form of distribution and potentially help promote some of the measurable revenue generators for their SkyMiles Program.
It was invaluable to get a better understanding of how a major airline is approaching the tumultuous economy and skyrocketing gas prices. Delta executives appeared calm and collected with a very clear understanding of what needs to be done to remain a major player in the airline industry. I was also impressed with how friendly and helpful Gary, Charlie, Frances and Zack were during the meetings. Their openness to new and unique ways to drive conversions to Delta.com was great - and probably one of the reasons Delta is able to innovate in the face of hardships.
We are really excited to be off to a fantastic start in developing a solid partnership with Delta. At the end of the day, Charlie even let us ‘borrow’ a conference room for to jump on a scheduled call!
Thanks to Gary, Charlie, Frances and Zack for all of their feedback and for helping identify areas of opportunity for both of our businesses moving forward.
