Awesome. All right, everybody, back on the airlines track on day two of TD Cowen's 10th Annual Future of the Consumer Conference. We're super excited to be joined today by Ranjan Goswami, Chief Marketing and Product Officer for Delta Air Lines. Ranjan, before we begin, any safe harbor statements you need to make?
Yes, please. We'll be talking about expectations and plans. Obviously, factors can change that, and you can read about those implications in our SEC filings. Thank you.
Awesome. Thanks so much. Before we get into just how you're thinking about the future of the consumer and loyalty, you were recently appointed to this role. Would you mind walking the audience through some of the teams and verticals that fall under your strategic oversight and what your key priorities are?
Sure. What we've done is we've essentially brought together product design and end-to-end design, and marketing. The idea is that the brand is the product, and the product is the brand. If you bring these teams together, you can start to set up that promise for what the experience will be, and then ultimately deliver against that promise and exceed those expectations. That's the sort of why behind the what of bringing these disciplines together. I think when you put your consumer hat on it, what's really exciting is there are four capabilities that we're driving by doing this. One is a data capability.
If you think about marketing organizations that look at audience segmentation and that kind of data to target you for a conversion or an action we want you to take, and then you think about the customer experience, and we have all this data about your actual experience. When you bring this, what is fundamentally customer data together, that becomes really powerful in how you can really one-to-one deliver a message. Right? If you have a poor experience the week before, the way I set up another action I want you to take this week can be customized. There's a data piece on this, which we're calling ultimately customer intelligence and personalization. Second key component is really putting all of our channels together and orchestrating channels. The airlines, and especially Delta, we have so many owned channels that are logged in, authenticated, identity authenticated channels.
Think about our app, you think about the website, Wi-Fi, the in-flight screens, and more. Now we can really orchestrate all of these channels by sending you the right message at the right time as you go from channel to channel. This integrated marketing and channels orchestration is a second piece that we brought together. We used to have some of these channels sitting in customer experience, some sitting in marketing. They now all sit together. Third, end-to-end brand experience. How do we think about how our people show up, how the operation shows up, the physical experiences, and the digital experiences all in end-to-end journeys, now we've brought that together. The final piece is on partnerships. Delta is now a platform for partnerships built around our loyalty program. The best consumer brands in their categories want to partner with us.
We want to partner with them. How do we think about that holistically? When you think about this data capability, channel orchestration, end-to-end brand experience, and a partner ecosystem, all of those things start to come together in a very exciting way.
How do your nearly 22 years at Delta and Northwest inform your approach to the role? Can you talk about some of the prior initiatives that you've worked on?
Sure. Well, it's funny. 22 years ago, I was putting CRJ200 into market. These are 50-seat airplanes that today no one likes. In fact, today, Delta doesn't have any of them. It just tells you how fast the industry's changing, especially as Delta's upgauged the airline. I'd say a couple of things. One, spent some time out in California for seven years with Delta there overseeing our B2B sales there and also orchestrating what was our terminal investment in L.A., a $2.3 billion investment that's now really given us the catbird seat at that airfield. Right? 32 contiguous gates over three concourses. What was exciting about that was learning about the combination of you need to fly, you need to be where people want to go. L.A. is the second largest market, you also want to have the right experience with that, right?
That's why we invested so much there. Learning about how obviously the network meets the terminal experience to really create that opportunity to grow. Today, we're Number 1 in L.A. as an example. COVID, I oversaw our 25,000 flight attendants at that time. At Delta, our people are truly the brand differentiator. For 100 years, we've had a special relationship with them. They are the brand, and we were one of only two airlines, I think the only big airline in the world that didn't furlough a single person. That's because we worked together to create our strategy to get through COVID. I would say, how do we take Delta people and make them front and center of the experience is such an important part of what we do as well. Most recently, obviously, working on the customer experience and really elevating that.
What we like to say at Delta is, no matter where you sit on the airplane and where you choose to sit on the airplane, it's going to be a best-in-class experience. If you want a Main Cabin experience, it's better than anyone else. If you want a Delta One experience, it's better than everyone else. Looking at all of those things from kind of a 360 view has been really helpful. What I would also say that's absolutely critical is a listening architecture that you need to understand what consumers want, so that as marketers and as product designers, we can bring to bear the right messages and the right products. We have stood up here 24 listening posts for an always-on listening. Our customers are invested in our success. They want to tell us things. They want us to succeed and get better.
We now have a real flywheel here as it relates to not just broad experiences on our team across the airline, but also now the data that really informs those decisions.
Yeah. Throughout your time at Delta, the company's been investing significantly in the customer experience and in leading the industry on the premium travel, which has been a really exciting secular theme for airlines over the last 10, 15 years. In addition to some of the initiatives you just discussed, what other differentiators do you think are key to the last decade and a half of your investments to de-commoditize travel?
Well, I think it's been a really deliberate strategy. The first building block was fundamental reliability, right? We needed at scale to deliver on the promise, which is a promise of time. Ultimately, if we fail you in that promise, no matter how good all the other things are, it's not going to land well with the customer. So, we built that foundational reliability layer, which has been key. Second, on top of that, we talk about the Delta people. When you look at our NPS, the Number 2 driver beyond reliability is the people of Delta, so how they show up to make it a more personal experience and connect with you. Even though we carry 500,000 to 700,000 customers a day, you want to be seen as an individual, right? No one wants to be treated as a number.
Third, we had to go to where people wanted to go. I think 15 years ago, we did not have hubs in Seattle, L.A., Boston, and here at LaGuardia. Delta, over those 15 years, built a system and leadership positions in these critical markets in addition to our core markets. That also was a huge piece. The next thing we did was we really created choice for the customer onboard the airplane. If you think about it, there's no Delta airplane with less than three classes of service, and many of our airplanes have four. We've got Delta One, we've got Delta Premium Select, domestic first class, Comfort, Delta Comfort, and Delta Main. That allowed customers to choose what kind of experience they wanted.
As you've probably all seen most recently, we've now further segmented within each of those product experiences to make basic, classic, extra. Choice is critical, and I think we really created choice, but we wanted to make sure we were open for business for all customers at all price points. Again, with this notion that no matter where they chose to be on the airplane, they would have a best-in-class experience. Those are some of the real pieces that have been critical to our success over 15 years. The final piece I would say is the loyalty ecosystem.
If you deliver a product consistently and on that fundamental promise of time, and then you layer in amazing people, and you layer in flying to where people want to go, and giving them choices of where they want to sit on the airplane, you now give them a loyalty ecosystem that makes them really want to come back to Delta. We've delivered on a loyalty program with both partners that are not just travel adjacent, but everyday partners that allow customers to feel really connected to Delta. All of those things together, I think, have been a consistent strategy over these last 15 years.
How important are those in terms of building trust with the consumers and then having that trust associated with your brand?
Yeah. Trust is everything. Every brand is based on trust, which is why that reliability piece is ultimately pretty fundamental. We today have a 15%-unit revenue premium versus the industry. We've commanded that lead for well over a decade. We're very proud of that lead. That demonstrates trust, right? When customers come back to you and say, "I'm willing to pay you a premium, I feel like that premium is worth it." Whenever we look at our data on customer sat, we're trying to understand, are we over-delivering versus what we said? We look at it in two ways. The first is what we call a blue sky experience. When things go according to plan and the customer does not detect a failure, we're now a 70 NPS brand, which is really exciting.
Now, what we want to do, because that's the largest number of customers have a blue sky experience with us, is how do you accelerate into that? This is where the data comes into play. I'll give you one specific example using the people of Delta as our superpower. We've identified specific behaviors that if those behaviors are exposed to a customer in a blue-sky experience, on average, that NPS will rise by 70 points. Things like that deliver that trust, right. That's blue sky. We also know our airline industry is exposed to ATC, weather, other types of delays, and we are maniacally focused also on measuring when it's a gray sky experience, what's the trust factor there?
I think customers realize that things will happen, but what they want to know is that you care about it, you apologize for it and own it, you communicate proactively, and you tell me what to do next. Now we have a whole apparatus of notifications, and again, how our people, together with technology, show up, which we know drives those negative NPS scores up by 50 points. Trust, I think, is a couple of factors, right? One, are people willing to pay you? Two, are you focused on the right things as it relates to a blue sky experience? When things go wrong, what's your recovery experience like? We're focused at it from both ends, and I think that's why we're leading the pack as it relates to customer experience.
That's really exciting. We have a lot of generalists in the room today. It's a broader consumer conference. Would you just mind walking through how some of these differentiators and consumer-focused investments then help to create a positive flywheel with customer loyalty and engagement with the program?
Yeah. Listen, I think the flywheel is straightforward. Deliver a really great, predictable, it's really important in our business. You can't have surprises with the customer, right? They've got to appreciate that what you said is going to happen is going to happen. Make that a delightful experience in addition to predictable, right? All the things that we've done in each cabin to do that, and then repeat it. You've got to repeat it at scale. We tell our teams every day, the clock resets to zero at the end of every day. We had 5,500 flights yesterday. We're going to have 5,500 flights today. That's continuous, right? When you're talking about the numbers that we have, 500,000 to 700,000 customers a day in the Delta system, that consistency is important.
If we do that well, together with this loyalty piece that tells the customer, "Hey, when you keep coming back to us, it's not just for a great experience, but we're going to reward you with really great perks and benefits, either in the moment or in the future." Ultimately, like any generalist would do is say, is the brand becoming more sticky, right? We believe we're driving that.
Yeah. Okay, now we know where Delta sits today. How do you keep innovating to drive customer loyalty, stay ahead of your peers? A lot of your peers have copied some of the strategies that you've demonstrated over the last decade and a half.
Yeah. Listen, innovation is everything. You've got to stay ahead of the game. I think the good news here is we have so many proof points of being able to look at where that puck is going. I'll give you a couple of examples. Back 15 years ago, we realized that connectivity was really important, and at that point, we decided to put paid Wi-Fi even on our two class RJs, as you might remember. Only airline to do that. Fast-forward to just six years ago, we made the strategic decision to say, "You know what? Wi-Fi needs to be free," right? No one had done that either. Everyone's sort of doing that now as we speak. Give you another example. Premium seats, Delta One. These are customers going across oceans, long haul flying. They want to sleep, right?
We realized 15 years ago that you needed to have flat beds with direct aisle access. No one wants to be stepped over to go to the aisle when they need to go to the bathroom, right? We set that in motion. The whole industry was still at angle seats with step over. 10 years ago, in 2016, we said, "You know what? How do we make that Delta One experience even better? Let's put suite doors in front of it." Now we have 50% of our wide body fleet with suites. Everyone else is now saying, "Let's now put a door in front of it." The reality in this business is people will copy really good ideas. The question for us is how do we make sure we understand what the consumer wants and meet them faster than anyone else?
I think in every one of these examples I've given you, we've set the standard and then, like the Golden Gate Bridge, right, you come back on, and when you have a fleet of 1,400 airplanes, it's going to take some time to redo things. In every one of these things, we are appreciably ahead.
Would you walk the audience through Delta Sync and the role that plays and what engagement's been like amongst SkyMiles members?
Yeah. This has been a really exciting journey. As I mentioned earlier, we at the airline and at Delta specifically, have so many owned channels where our members are logged in, and therefore we can personalize the experiences that they have. What we did with Delta Sync was, one, we sat and stepped back and said, "Wi-Fi shouldn't just be like electricity in a room that's really expensive." What we want to make sure is we have really good quality Wi-Fi but make it a dataful approach. What do we mean by that? By making it a member benefit, you log into Wi-Fi, and any device that you bring in, you log in, and you get to Delta Sync Wi-Fi.
Not only do we give you the entire Internet, which is of course what you want, we also give you a whole host of things to think about and do and sample and experience in that ecosystem, right? That's now commanding 30% of our customers who log into Delta Sync Wi-Fi are staying with us in that environment that we've created. What that tells you is not only do people want to get on the Internet, but if you give them really good, personalized experiences to sample and experience, they're going to want to stay with you there. Similarly, we wanted to make that seat back screen a smart screen like the TV you have at home. We've believed for many years now that seat back screens are table stakes. Everyone wants a multi-screen environment.
At home, you have the TV going, you have your phone going, and you've got your laptop or iPad. Same thing on the airplane, except that it's praying mantis. You don't have a lot of space, right? We've got to provide you one of those screens, which we have done now 168,000 and counting. The difference is those screens weren't a logged in environment. When we sat back and said, "Okay, let's connect the aircraft and let's connect every device brought on the airplane," whether that device is brought by a customer or that Delta provides the customer in these screens, we can make that a logged in experience. Delta Sync seatback now is on over 400 airplanes. The login rate for that using your birthday is over 40%.
Wow.
Meanwhile, Delta Sync Wi-Fi login rates for Wi-Fi on your personal device are approaching 50%. Now 30% of those customers are staying with us. In the case of the seatback, right, they're interacting with that seatback screen for the two and a half hours they're on the flight. When we think about owned channels that are personalized, identity authenticated, and now the customer is using these channels over the course of their entire travel day, oftentimes on a connect itinerary, but at the very least every flight, two and a half hours, this allows us now to market more Delta products to them and messages. It allows us to tell them about their journey, right? You need to know about your carousel and your connect flight, not everyone else's on board the airplane.
It allows us to have persistent preferences like what movies are favorite for you, or where do you want to pick up where you left off, or those types of things. Now all of a sudden, you kind of log into these Delta channels on board the airplane, and it's like, we know who you are, we know what you want. You then put in third parties on top of that, and this becomes a really exciting flywheel. The point I want to make is you don't just build these things overnight. You've got to get connectivity at scale. You've got to get screens at scale. You've got to get a partner ecosystem at scale. You've got to build the actual digital formats that allow the customer to have a personalized experience between their devices and the screens.
We are really leading the charge on this. We believe in it deeply, and this is what Delta Sync is all about.
Yeah. That's a great point on how long it takes to build those up. It's not something like putting it in a bag for you that you can replicate overnight.
Yeah.
You made the point on connectivity. I think that'd be a good segue into Amazon Leo. You recently announced an agreement for initial installation on, I think, 500 aircraft starting in 2028. Could you walk us through how the advancements in satellite technology are enabling this new frontier for in-flight connectivity?
Yeah, for sure. As I mentioned, we've seen connectivity as a critical customer need for, gosh, almost two decades, right? When we went into full paid Wi-Fi across every airplane and then decided to go free six years ago. Today we are at 1,200 airplanes with free Wi-Fi. There is no other airline at that kind of scale doing that, and we've done that, by the way, for four years. We have good track record in this. What we're learning in this, like with anything, is technology keeps getting better and better. Our existing partners today, Viasat and Hughes, are improving their own products. Amazon is setting up a constellation that will be a best-in-class constellation as well.
When you have 1,400 airplanes, what you want to make sure you do is you have a multi-supplier, multi-partner ISP strategy, because that allows you to deal with risk mitigation, et cetera. These 500 airplanes that are coming to Amazon Leo, they're a combination of new delivery airplanes as well as airplanes that are coming off contract. Some of our earlier airplanes we put on free Wi-Fi. That's how we're thinking about this. Go back to the Golden Gate Bridge, right? You finish repainting it, and then you've got to start over again. The same thing here is true as it relates to this.
What is really exciting about where Amazon is thinking about this, for those of you who are satellite people and know about capacity and speeds and latency, we're talking about one gigabit on the downlink to the aircraft and 400 megabits on the uplink. That is really incredible. That is better than anything that's out there today. What does that 400 on the uplink mean? It means that when you go on a trip to Rome, on your flight back, you can upload every photo, do all the things you want to do, all the stuff that you know you always want to get to and never quite get to it because life takes over. Imagine being able to do all of that on that return 10-hour flight back to Kennedy, right? This is the kind of next advancement as we think about this.
Having said that, I do think it's really important to point out a couple of things. We have just installed the first time on any airplane anywhere in the world on a 717, a dual orbit antenna system with Hughes. What does that mean? It means we have one antenna for GEO satellites and one antenna for LEO satellites. LEO is what Amazon Leo, Starlink, and others are using. GEO, of course, is what Viasat and others are using. Now we have a dual antenna system. It's on our 717. It's coming to our 321neos next year. It's coming to the 350-1000. That's going to appreciably make the experience better.
In addition, for Viasat, a brand-new satellite that has more capacity than all of their satellites combined is now in place and will cover the Americas. We will be the first airline to switch over to that. When we think about this, on 1,400 airplanes you've got to take this view that's very methodical around all the steps you need to have, all the providers you need to have, and that renewal strategy over time as well. Amazon's a critical part of that future, which we're really excited about.
Within Amazon's satellite capabilities, I think some investors were curious if there was any impact on the Blue Origin incident recently. Maybe just touch on that quickly.
Sure. As you can imagine, getting a constellation up into space requires a lot of launch capacity. The good news is Amazon has multiple launch capacity providers. They're using ULA, they're using SpaceX, they're using Ariane, they're using Blue Origin as well. We still feel very confident about our 2028 timelines. There was buffer built into that. They're buying more launch capacity as we speak, and we've got every bit of confidence in them.
Okay. That's great to hear. Delta's partnered with Amazon via AWS for a long time. Now the partnership seems poised to expand in a pretty meaningful way. What other additional initiatives might something like the Leo agreement enable, especially with Delta Sync?
Yeah. Well, listen, I think this is the key difference with Amazon. They're not just pipe to the airplane. They're the biggest consumer brand in the world. When we think about things and use cases like shopping or content or gaming, these are all places where Amazon plays in a really big way. We are a full AWS shop. We've taken 600 apps into the cloud with them. We believe there is a back-end opportunity to create delightful experiences for our customers onboard our planes. We certainly think that their consumer businesses can really add to what we've already done on Delta Sync. More to come on this, but it is connected, and we're thinking about it as a true platform, and they play an integral part to that.
Could that even potentially be something like driving engagement on not even just on Delta Sync but even on the ground, too, in their day-to-day lives like you've done with other partnerships?
Absolutely. I think the way we've got to think about all of this is the airline sits at the center of a partner ecosystem, and we've seen brands in every category, right? From payments with Amex to mobility with Uber to coffee with Starbucks, Airbnb, you name it. All the content providers that want to be associated with us, they realize that the flight and the quality of the audience are reasons to be a part of the Delta ecosystem. At the same time, they also recognize, as do we, that the flight ends and you go on with your life, right? Hopefully you're going to come back to another flight. That connectivity on the ground and the experiences that you take on the ground is as important.
Which is why on Delta Sync, what we've done is every experience that you have, whether it's Paramount or FOX One or New York Times or what have you, it's portable. You don't just get to sample it on the airplane. You get to take it with you for 24 hours or 14 days, right? That allows you to now really understand that particular product. That's the same type of thinking and lens we would have ultimately with Amazon.
It's exciting. I think that kind of gets into the topic of commerce media, which has been a big focus area across the consumer landscape in recent years. We've written about it here at TD Cowen and definitely think there's interesting opportunities in the space for brand loyal airlines like Delta. There's a wide variety of approaches and definitions to commerce media. How do you think about it?
First, thank you for writing so much about it, because I think it's a really interesting space for the airline business, but especially for Delta as well. The way we think about this is the experience has to be personalized. If you're going to go and interrupt the experience with a bunch of random ads, I don't think that's what customers want, and I think people reject that ultimately. If you make the ability for other brands to take part in a way that is part of the experience and that is ultimately personalized, then I think you're talking a whole different category. A few of us were talking earlier today, when you go through your Instagram feed, most of the ads that they're sending you don't feel like ads because they've really gotten to know who you are and what you like.
I think that's incumbent upon us as we look at commerce media network application to the airline business. It's about the experience first. If you do that, I think you're going to have better outcomes for third-party brands anyway. How have we thought about this? What Delta Sync is ultimately is it's experiences that we're putting in front of our members. The first obvious benefit is your membership unlocks Wi-Fi, right? It unlocks your screen, it unlocks your devices. You get into this environment where now all of these brands want you to sample their product. We started this journey with Paramount, right, where you can have the entire Paramount Showtime library, bless you, and you can get all of that, right, to essentially the customer to be able to enjoy and then take off the airplane. Very successful.
We're giving millions of leads to a company like Paramount. We moved into YouTube Premium, right? YouTube without ads, it's an amazing thing. If you haven't experienced it, try it, right? You can try it on a Delta airplane, and by the way, you can then experience it for 14 days. We moved into anime, Crunchyroll, the largest anime OTT service for all of you anime fans out there. The New York Times All Access. You get The Athletic, you get Wirecutter, you get travel, you get cooking, you get news, right? The entire New York Times is unlocked on board the airplane for you. Now FOX One. Now you're going to have MLB Sports and FIFA World Cup, and again, you get to take that with you for 24 hours.
This is part of the experience, but why did we choose all of those brands to be part of this network is because what people want to do on the airplane is be entertained. That's the number one use case. They spend all that time on those screens watching movies, watching short series, et cetera. We said, you know what? The first use case we should have when we lean into an experience network like this is those types of brands. We believe fundamentally in this concept of a media network. We believe more fundamentally that it has to be experience led and ultimately personalized. Imagine a world now where you're going to Paris, right? Now when you log into Delta Sync Wi-Fi, you see a YouTube spot about Paris. You see a Paramount title about France, right?
Now you see a New York Times food article about baking a croissant. Whatever it happens to be, all of a sudden now you can think about all of these partners helping you curate and getting customers excited about their trips. Has to be contextual, has to be personalized, which is one of the reasons why we started with logged in authentication and really putting partners on board the platform that the customer says, "You know what? This could be something that will really add value to my trip," as opposed to it feeling foreign and.
Yeah
random.
No, the wealth of high fidelity data and the capital, it's a perfect platform for you guys and a lot of white space. What is engagement? You've built up this suite of non-air consumer partnerships, a lot of leading brands, Delta or Starbucks, Uber. What has engagement been like with some of these partnerships? How does that help you get top of wallet among consumers?
It's really exciting, this goes back to the thesis that Delta is a platform for brands and an ecosystem, right? Ultimately, this loyalty program is the wrapper around all of it. If you look at the Amex relationship, right, payments such an important everyday thing. You have 9 million people with a co-brand card that spend is approaching 1% of U.S. GDP. That's kind of incredible when you think about that.
Yeah.
It's our best example of a partnership that has been tried and true for decades, and we've built everything around that. Starbucks, we have four million linked accounts on Starbucks.
Wow.
Right? That's incredible. In fact, initially, there was so much demand for it that the linking system actually went down for a couple of hours.
Good problem to have.
It was a high class problem, right? This is what's so cool now, right? Starbucks, an everyday brand. Many of us stop by a Starbucks every single day. Now when you go to LaGuardia, right, you get your double star points on your day of travel, right?
Wow.
That's awesome. You're thinking about Delta. By the way, you get to still have the coffee on board the airplane as well. Real cool extension for both brands, quite frankly. Great exposure, great relevance as well. Uber, we're at 2 million linked accounts and counting, which is again, really exciting, where you get benefits and miles by using Reserve, using Uber One, of course, your rides to the airport, right? Airbnb, we just started linking accounts there, so just early days yet, but really excited about that. All of these brands have real high engagement because people want to basically earn those miles, right, and organize their everyday life around maximizing their ability to travel.
I think this goes back to this experience economy that we are in, and where people are saying, "I want to prioritize experiences in however short or long my life will be," because we all have that COVID memory, right? We're seeing that. By the way, it's amazing. This year to date, we've had 65 days of over $100 million in cash sales in our direct channels of the app and .com.
Wow.
Last year, that was only 19. We're talking about 3x $100 million days on people buying experiences, right, going on trips of a lifetime on Delta directly with us, which is just really incredible. This whole ecosystem I think is very exciting. Now you add on all these content partnerships on board the airplane, right? Where millions of people are now exposed to all of these things. The ecosystem is robust, it's highly engaged, and it's growing. Watch this space. Next month, I wish I could talk about it right now, but you're going to see two really cool new things happen on Delta Sync. One with an existing partner, a longtime partner, and the other, a brand-new partner. You're going to see us do more in lodging. We're just getting started.
I can't wait. I look forward to the announcement. How do you think about just choosing partners in your portfolio? Obviously, you've got a really exciting. Sounds like some more ones coming, but how do you think about evaluating?
Well, partnerships have to be a win-win. I think the first filter is, does the brand align with our brand? I say this humbly, but we really believe we are the leading brand in this category, and we want to think of ourselves ultimately as being a leading consumer brand. That is our aspiration. Therefore, we want to partner with like-minded brands that both share the values and also share the premium of how they think about their brand. Again, when I use that word "premium," I want to go back to the fact that no matter where you choose to sit on the airplane, it should be a best-in-class experience, right?
Yeah.
It's not just for people who buy Delta One. We want to be an accessible premium brand across everything. We look for partners that have the same type of fidelity in how they think about their brand. Let's go through the list again, right? Amex, the leader in payments. Uber, the leader in mobility. Starbucks, the leader in everyday coffee, breakfast, whatnot, but that third place. Airbnb, the leader in experience travel and experience lodging. All of the content partners that we've talked about. That's the first filter. The second filter, it has to be a win-win for both sides.
Yeah.
How are we driving accretive value to the partner and to Delta? What's great about that is there's so many levers we can pull for value. Whether it's awareness impressions, whether it's mileage earn and burn, whether it's experiences at the airport. Then we try to look at weaving these things together, and I'll give you a great example. I'll be heading to LaGuardia later here, and I'll be taking an Uber Reserve. I'll get a great deal on that because of the Delta-Uber relationship. It's a travel day, so I get my double star points.
Yeah.
I will be able to get on board the airplane and ultimately, if it was next month or later this month, watch FIFA World Cup live on a Delta flight. That's awesome. That's an experience. That's not just a seat in the air. That's an end-to-end experience that is weaving together partnerships in a very cohesive and very intentional way. I think that's what customers want.
Oh, yeah.
Right? They want not commoditized experiences. They want someone who have thought about it and invested in the experience, which is what we're committed to doing. That's the lens, right? It starts with, is it brand right, and do they have the same approach to their category? Is it accretive to the experience? Can we weave in and make these end-to-end experiences? Is there real value creation for both sides?
Yeah. No, that's going to deepens your relationship with them, builds that utility. Coming up on time here, I'm sure we could spend a whole hour on this, but obviously, AI is a major topic right now in all vectors of the economy. Where do you see potential for AI to enhance the customer experience, and maybe things like Delta Concierge, which I think you guys have teased at CES in years past?
Yeah. Well, clearly such an exciting opportunity. We talk about our people being the superpower of Delta, and I think AI can help augment them to be even bigger superpowers, right? Spend more time connecting with customers. That's our general frame on it. What I would say is, Delta Concierge is really exciting because it can take what are more complex transactions that take a lot of back and forth and turn them into natural language ways for you to transact with us. Right now, 5% of our app users are included in a beta on Delta Concierge, and we just launched rebooking and cancel as opportunities, and it's working really well. Getting really good feedback on that. Next month, that 5% will go to 100%.
Wow.
You're going to see us really leaning in here where that tool, by the way, another channel, right, another logged-in channel that we've essentially created here. This ecosystem of channels and orchestrating those channels, very powerful. We're going to lean into that. What I would also say is AI is going to have real opportunity for us as we think about customer feedback. What do I mean by that? You can now create synthetic panels to understand how customers might react to a new product design or a loyalty program change. Sometimes you're working on top-secret things that you don't want to talk about, right? You try to do NDAs and whatnot with research focus groups, but we can now do synthetic panels, which means we can also survey you less. People are getting survey fatigue.
We love the fact that they want to give us feedback all the time, but how do we get smarter about collecting that feedback, and how do we create these panels that allow us to really lean into consumer insight, but in a much faster way?
Yeah.
I think these are very broad. I've talked to you about transactions on the one hand, all the way to how we think about consumer research on the other, and I think there's a lot in between. I think the question for us is, let's stay real focused on what matters to the customer, and once we use that, think about how AI can help us in an efficient, economical way. We want to be very methodical about it, but clearly a lot of opportunity.
Yeah
in this space.
That's fascinating. Ranjan, we're up on time, but we've gone through a lot of really exciting things at Delta today. Anything you'd like to close with us?
Just one thank you for the interest, and thanks for including us on the agenda, Tom. I hope what I've tried to convey to you is we are very much committed to a brand experience, and we believe that that brand experience is multifaceted. We think we are leading the pack as it relates to how we're thinking about it, how we're very future-oriented, and we're very methodical in how we're going about it. We're seeing the proof in the pudding, right? Even in a very uncertain situation right now in the world, demand remains very strong and resilient. Corporate is up, premium is up, Main Cabin is up. I think that speaks to both the durability of the brand and also the resiliency of our customer set.
Yeah.
Which is probably the best quality customer audience in the airline business.
That's terrific. Well, Ranjan, we can't thank you enough for being here. We learned a lot today. It was a fascinating conversation, and hope to continue in the years ahead.
Thank you so much, Tom.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.