Just months after reconfiguring their long-haul fleet with Economy Comfort – additional legroom in the coach cabin – Delta Airlines announced today that they are expanding the deployment fleet-wide to all mainline aircraft as well as all two-cabin regional aircraft. This move brings the carrier into direct competition with United Airlines and their EconomyPlus product offering.
The product will be installed in the first three-to-five rows of the Economy cabin by removing a negligible number of seats from the current cabin configuration on all of Delta’s domestic Boeing 767, 757, 737, MD88, MD90, DC9, Airbus A320 and A319 aircraft, and all two-class regional jets including the CRJ900, CRJ700, E170 and E175 aircraft types by summer 2012. The breadth of this installation means flights to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and northern South America will also offer the Economy Comfort product. The first of these converted aircraft will be a Boeing 757 which will enter service in November.
The Economy Comfort will be priced between $19-99 per segment on the domestic flights and will include priority boarding. The domestic Economy Comfort product will be free for Diamond, Platinum and Gold Medallion elites as well as full-fare customers. Silver Medallion elites will have the option of purchasing the seats for 50% off at time of booking or for free during the check-in process.
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This is great news. I am still enjoying my move from AA. On my LGA-RDU route they have swapped out CRJ900s for E175s on some of the flights meaning going from 12 or 9 F seats to 6 so upgrades have been harder (even as plat) so the consolation prize of a bit more room in coach will make that more palatable
Interesting to see DL following UA’s lead with this…
This is really good news, as it confirms UA’s strategy is a good one. E+ clearly is a differentiator for me.
I wonder if DL was losing any passengers to UA, or if they just saw the creative ways UA is monetizing E+ and so wanted to get in to that game?
One of the most significant aspects of the DL announcement is that they’re doing it without reducing seat counts for the most part. I haven’t seen all the details but assuming that really holds then this is a great way to monetize the seats already on the plane just a bit more. Everything is being unbundled; why not legroom, too?