Why basic economy on American, Delta, and United is not so bad

Delta Air Lines economy cabin.
Delta News Hub

• I flew basic economy on Delta Air Lines recently. My
  flight got canceled, but the airline’s customer service proved
  to be truly impressive in stark contrast to my colleague’s
  recent experience on an ultra-low-cost
  carrier. 
• American, Delta, and
  United introduced basic
  economy to compete against price competition from low-cost
  airlines.
• Basic economy fares were widely derided when it first
  debuted in 2016. 

I usually avoid basic economy like the plague. The claustrophobic
flyer in me doesn’t like middle seats. Since traveling on a basic
economy ticket precludes you from pre-selecting seats, it’s
usually a no-go for me. 

However, I decided to take the plunge and go Delta basic economy
for a recent trip to Florida. These flights were operated on
a 76-seat regional jets with four-seats per row. Which means no
middles seats!

Here’s why there is basic economy

There have been few developments in the airline industry as
universally derided as basic economy on American, Delta, and
United. For America’s three legacy airlines, the premise for
basic economy is very simple; offer a slightly de-contented
product at a price point on par with ultra-low-cost
carriers (ULCCs) like Spirit or Frontier. It’s a product
that not only keeps the ULCCs from infringing on their turf, it
does the job without sacrificing the profitability of its
traditional economy class offering. 

“If we don’t match the lowest fare in a marketplace, we found
that we’ll lose around 20% of our customers over time,” American
Airlines CEO Doug Parker said at the Airlines for America Summit
on Wednesday. 

Delta basic economy versus traditional main cabin
economy.
Delta

Basic economy is targeted at a specific band of value-conscious
customers for whom price is king. In exchange for super low
prices, passengers give up the ability to board the aircraft
early, pre-select seats, have free carry-on bags, and enjoy free
upgrades to premium cabins. On the upside, once onboard, basic
economy passengers enjoy the same services and amenities as
everyone else in the economy cabin. 

“It’s not for everyone,” United Airlines CEO Oscar
Munoz told Business Insider in a 2017 interview. “It’s
the economics of matching and competing in markets where the
low-cost carriers are offering this type of basic-economy
service.”

Unfortunately, many consumers didn’t quite see it that way. For a
lot of us travelers, basic economy felt like an insult; an
example of greedy airlines squeezing every remaining drop of
blood left in its price-conscious customer base in form of
cramped middle seats and carry-on bag restrictions. 

Why basic economy works for me

For me, the business argument for basic economy makes
perfect sense. However, I have always been a bit dubious on how
the carriers would execute this fare class. 

Unfortunately, my basic economy didn’t go quite as planned. 

It’s 1 PM on the Friday before Labor Day weekend. Six
hours before my flight out of JFK International was set to take
off, I get the text every traveler dreads. Delta Air Lines had
canceled my flight. Good news! They’ve rebooked on a Saturday
evening flight. 

A Delta Boeing
757-200.
Reuters/Tami
Chappell

Unfortunately, this wasn’t going to work for me. Not only was
this supposed to be a mini holiday weekend getaway for my
girlfriend and me, we were also attending the wedding of one of
her best friends. And that Saturday night flight meant we would
miss a solid chunk of wedding festivities. 

After a few seconds of blind panic and a couple of concerned
looks from my editor, I jumped on Twitter to reach out Delta
while hurriedly calling their customer service line.

What happened next, along with the nightmarish experience my
colleague Rachel recently had with an ultra-low-cost
international carrier, would solidify my belief that basic
economy isn’t as bad as we imagined. 

My
conversation with Delta. Part 1.
Twitter

More on Rachel’s flight later. 

I was able to reach Delta’s customer support with surprising ease
considering there were flight cancellations with stormy weather
looming on the eve of a holiday weekend. I spoke with the
customer support agent who quickly put me on the first flight out
on Saturday morning. 

Just as I got off the phone, their social time got back to me as
well. So I decided to see if they could find a flight for us on
Friday night at one of New York’s other airports. Apart from
calling me by the wrong name, Delta’s social team were immensely
helpful. 

Delta was actually able to put me on a flight out of Newark
Airport that departed around the same time as my previous flight
with a connection through Atlanta. When the Newark flight got
delayed, our customer service rep put us on a later connecting
flight.

Here’s part 2.
Twitter

The entire experience was calming and very pleasant. The absolute
antithesis of society’s general mental image of airline customer
service. 

My colleague had a low-cost flight nightmare

In late July, my colleague Rachel Premack flew booked a flight
from Paris to New York on Latvian-Icelandic low-cost carrier
Primera Air.

Only she didn’t end up flying Primera. Her ordeal was painstakingly
documented in a review published last month. 

In short, Primera delayed her flight for four hours and before
canceling it altogether in the middle of the night due to
“technical reasons.” Communication between the airline and its
passengers was poor at best. Some got email instructions, others
didn’t. Even though Primera found hotel rooms for the stranded
passengers, there couldn’t rebook them on other flights. Instead,
Rachel had to spend another $1,249 on a Norwegian Air flight.

It’s been nearly two months since the incident and Primera has
yet to reimburse her for the flight.

A Primera Air Airbus.
Julio
Cortez/AP

This certainly isn’t representative of all low-cost carriers.
Southwest has built a sterling reputation for itself over the
years. But these two events serve to highlight the delta in
customer service between ULCCs and full-service legacy
carrier. 

“One of the biggest services that people don’t understand is that
if you buy a ticket on (ULCCs like) Spirit and it ain’t working,
or if the plane doesn’t go for some reason, you are done. You
gotta buy another ticket,” Munoz told us last year. “You don’t
get reaccommodated [but] you get very accommodated when you fly
with a legacy airline.”

The United CEO’s works proved to be prophetic in this case. 

Part of the cost of a legacy carrier is the infrastructure put in
place to handle operations when things do go wrong, but with
basic economy, you get that service at ultra-low-cost
prices.