Delta brings back bare-bones fares to compete with cheap rivals
For travelers willing to sacrifice flexibility and choice for the lowest price possible, Delta Air Lines Inc. is bringing back a "Basic Economy" fare with even fewer frills than a standard coach seat.
After resting dormant for months, Delta is resurrecting its lowest economy class ticket as it seeks to keep bargain carrier Spirit Airlines Inc. from luring away leisure travelers. The bare-bones "e-class" ticket will not allow passengers to get seat upgrades or make same-day flight changes and they will board last.
"Delta sees Spirit as a 55-airplane airline today that's going to be a 100-airplane airline in three or four years," said Bob Mann, an airline consultant in Port Washington, New York. "They view that as the emerging competitive problem which they'd just as soon not allow to become the next Southwest."
Delta first introduced Basic Economy in limited markets in March 2012, but many fliers may not have noticed. The airline only offered the fare on 25 routes from four of its hub markets: Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Salt Lake City.
The tickets are cheaper than other coach fares, spokesman Paul Skrbec said, though the price break varies on different routes. A Basic Economy ticket on a one-way flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Detroit on Feb. 6 costs $103.10 on Delta.com, or $10 less than the next-cheapest coach ticket.
A spokesman for Spirit didn't return calls seeking comment on Delta's strategy.
Price Driven
"We saw from our customers that were very price-driven -- that there was certainly demand for this type of a product," Skrbec said in an interview. "It's part of looking at what can we bring to the market for that particular type of customer while, at the same time, giving them a very strong economy product as a whole."
Delta began offering the product again this month on Delta.com and at online travel agencies for travel starting Feb. 1, Skrbec said. He said he didn't know how long it had been off the market. Since the new "e-class" tickets have even fewer rights than under the previous system, Delta wanted to shutter the program for long enough that holders of existing tickets didn't discover they suddenly had even more limited features. The price for Basic Economy tickets remains the same as before.
Getting Less
Skrbec discounted the idea that purchasers are getting less for their money. One of the most notable features of Basic Economy, no advance seat assignments, hasn't changed. He suggested price-sensitive buyers won't miss the features that are disappearing, including the right to buy or be awarded complimentary upgrades to better seats and the right to get same-day stand-by or confirmed tickets.
Mann, the airline consultant, said that when a bargain shopper looks for cheap flights on travel websites, Delta's Basic Economy fares should show up higher in the list of results. Delta will need to make sure buyers know what they're getting.
"You essentially have to explain to people, limit your expectations," Mann said. "This is what you are getting unless you chose more."
Top transportation news: TRNT Airline Dashboard: BI AIRL To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Sasso in Atlanta at msasso9bloomberg.net; Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas at maryc.sbloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufnerbloomberg.net Molly Schuetz, Stephen West