Suddenly worth it?
Screenshot by ZDNet
Every day that COVID recedes, airlines become happier.
Airline executives, more precisely.
Flight attendants are increasingly unhappy because customers are behaving in increasing asinine and threatening ways.
But let’s consider those customers.
I was moved this week by Delta Air Lines offering a pungent admission about its customer problems. Abandonment issues, for example.
It seems that, along with other airlines, Delta suffers from customers putting flights into their shopping carts and then thinking: “Nah, maybe I don’t want to spend 800 bucks on a flight to Milwaukee.”
This so-called cart abandonment is a particular issue with the younger and more financially sensitive customers.
Also: Delta says it wants the very best customers (then it treats them like this)
So last week, Delta announced it’s partnering with American Express to participate in its Plan It feature through the Delta.com website and subsequently its app.
This allows customers to pay over time in instalments. Which, of course, add up to more than the price of the ticket.
American Express says it persuaded Morning Consult to survey flyers and discovered that 68% of Gen Z and millennials desperately want to pay for their travel over time.
And why is Delta desperate to attract the young and restless?
Well, the airline’s senior vice president of customer engagement and loyalty — I always love an eight-word title — Dwight James told Skift: “The key is catching these younger generation flyers such that they’re moving into our ecosystem and they’re able to graduate with us, excuse the pun, over time.”
Get them now, give them their preferred form of payment, and they’ll love you when they’re, say, senior vice president…