Delta Air Lines will offer free streaming movies, television programming, music and video games on all U.S. flights of 90 minutes or more, starting Friday, August 1, 2014. Dubbed “Delta Studio”, entertainment will be offered through seat-back systems and streaming on wi-fi equipped flights to laptop computers, smart phones, and tablets.
Importantly, there seems to be no catch here and Delta is touting the news as such–
“Through the introduction of Delta Studio our customers have yet another reason to choose Delta and a different travel experience,” said Tim Mapes, senior vice president – Marketing. “Delta continues to be driven by customer feedback which has consistently placed the desire to be entertained at the top of the list of ways to improve our customers’ time in the air.”
The only “asterisk” is that on international flights only BusinessElite, First Class and Economy Comfort will have free, unrestricted access to in-flight entertainment. Economy passengers will have access to a more-limited library of free content.
Same story on domestic flights, though economy passengers will have access to satellite TV, music, video games, and certain movies (Delta mentions The Hunger Games: Catching Fire as an example). Paid content will include–
Additional premium content will be available for purchase in economy including the latest movie titles such as ‘Need for Speed’ or ‘Rio 2,’ HBO and SHOWTIME programming as well as on-demand TV shows like ‘About a Boy’ or ‘The Middle.’ Delta’s full entertainment line-up for the month of August is available in Sky magazine.
As United rips out overhead IFE from its Airbus narrowbody fleet and American merges with IFE-free US Airways, Delta is going in an opposite direction: already there are 140 domestic aircraft configured with seat-back entertainment systems and similar entertainment is being added to the former Northwest fleet and Delta aircraft that do not yet have individual entertainment. In addition to more than 100 Airbus and Boeing aircraft that will be delivered with seat-back IFE through 2018, 56 Boeing 757-200, 43 Boeing 737-800s and 57 Airbus A319 aircraft will be re-tooled to include personal IFE.
Let’s also not forget that Delta has over 900 wi-fi enabled aircraft as well and that list is growing. Delta also has re-introduced complimentary meals in economy class on some domestic transcon routes, free alcohol in economy, and even amenity kits and bottled water.
With healthy profits, Delta can afford to spruce up its inflight product–even behind the curtain. Despite its travesty of a loyalty program (on the redemption and earnings side), leisure and business flyers not concerned about collecting points will find Delta a much better experience internationally and now domestically with a plethora of new complimentary media options.
Will this news make you more likely to fly Delta?
If only they weren’t ATL-based… hard to support a company in the South, and unpleasant to travel through that bloody airport.
“…there seems to be no catch here….” LOL!!! Wait and see it. Nothing comes free from Delta. Maybe they are just trying to be nice before announcing a major devaluation of their Skypesos.
No! Until Delta adds value to their SkyPesos program, I will not fly that airline.
One correction to your post:
The content is the same in all classes (J, F, Y+ and Y) and all content is 100% free in all classes on ALL international flights, JFK-SFO/LAX/SEA, flights to the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the U.S.V.I. There is no “asterisk”. Everything is free.
The only time a customer will be charged is while seated in standard economy on a domestic flight. Only new release movies, HBO, Showtime and new release TV shows will be PPV. And there is more free content than PPV content.
The downside of these seat-back systems is that they’re seat-back systems. I was on a Virgin flight where the constant tapping on the back of my head was truly annoying. Touch screens are a bad idea for airplanes.
You don’t get it…Delta doesn’t want the FF community/bloodsucker community..lol.
Not really, at least domestically. When flying domestically, my priorities are a) avoiding connections and b) avoiding regional jets. DL largely fails on both counts if you’re flying out of DFW. Maybe I’d give them a closer look if I were flying to another DL hub, or on a last-minute trip where there’s a major price difference between nonstop on AA/VX/WN vs. connecting options on others, but that’s about it. Of course, if Doug Parker ends up completely USAir-ifying the New American, I reserve the right to change my mind.
Internationally, though, where I’m going to have to take a connection anyway? Maybe, but it depends on what happens with AAdvantage in the long run. Right now, it’s still far and away a better program, which tilts things in Oneworld’s favor.
@Chris: Before I update my post, are you sure about this? The press release seems to indicate otherwise and just from memory (flying legacy United behind the curtain) there was more limited content loaded than in business and first, with the rest being available for fee. Certainly DL =/= UA, but I figured–based on the wording of the linked press release–that was the case.
@Matthew…yes…there is considerably more free content than PPV. I agree that the news release was a bit unclear…but my explanation is 100% accurate.
I am flying to Puerto Rico in three weeks so will I probably have onboard entertainment? We are in economy comfort!
@Chris, do you what aircraft you are flying or what your flight number is?