LAUNCH DATE: The new International Main Cabin for Delta Air Lines rolled out in November 2019.
The launch of the new Delta Air Lines’ International Main Cabin brings significant enhancements across the cabin in food, crew service, comfort and technology. The new service is designed to increase onboard hospitality and customer satisfaction through increased customer touchpoints, as well as providing better amenities and meals. The redesign process included many iterative improvements and took more than 12 months of continual testing with over 700 test flights.
Bold thinking
After decades of delivering the same International Main Cabin experience on its routes, the team designed the new offer with a focus on ‘wow factor’ hospitality elements from welcome cocktails to upgraded entrees, to new serviceware. The new experience has proven to be a real winner with customers, flight attendants, and Delta management and represents a bold and intentional next step towards elevating the onboard customer experience.
The new service is rooted in ‘BOLD Hospitality’ – a human, authentic and warm approach that when delivered consistently, opens the opportunity for genuine and natural connections with customers while creating lasting memories. Customers also get larger, high-quality chef-curated meals; thoughtful touches like welcome cocktails; and updated amenity kits and onboard textiles. Designed by flight attendants, with customers as the main focus, the new cabin is delivering an exceptional experience with this bold hospitality evident to every customer as soon as they step onboard.
People power
Working on the concept with the flight attendants were health, safety and security team members, strategic programmes’ personnel, catering and inflight service leaders. The wide range of operational knowledge and over 560 years of combined experience involved in the planning, ensured the team was able to design a new cabin experience centred on this bold hospitality philosophy, with better ergonomics and innovative custom-designed serviceware and catering practices.
The undeniable wow-factor is provided through a personalised service and customer experience connected through a series of strategic customer touchpoints – the service is more reminiscent of Delta’s premium cabins than a standard main cabin.
Delta prides itself on boldly innovating through its people, not just its products which it recognises can be imitated. The new international main cabin experience, with its redesigned inflight service, re-imagined catering processes, and new custom-designed serviceware, differentiates the experience from that of Delta’s global competitors. Onboard service procedures have been updated to include the additional customer touchpoints while reinforcing safety, bold hospitality and creating efficiencies. System-wide training also took place involving everyone from flight attendants to caterers, to achieve the new elevated experience.
Serviceware steps up
New platters/serviceware have been introduced which are ergonomically superior. New, custom cart-top thermal boxes mean entrees can be transferred from oven to top of cart for a ‘Wine & Dine’ meal service. Custom, cart-ready waste boxes also make clearance a breeze. Flight attendants and customers benefit from less traffic in the aisle during service. And, in recognition of Delta’s CSR policies, the new service reduces onboard plastic and eliminates single use plastics through the new serviceware.
To further enhance comfort, amenity kits have also been upgraded and feature less plastic, making them more green and sustainable. Delta has also introduced ‘green’ blankets made from plastic and increased blanket provisioning onboard all international flights. Increased offerings through the IFE systems and the updated flydelta app also help enhance the experience through technology, along with enhancements to the flight attendant SkyPros capability.
