In 2015 when Delta Air Lines introduced its Operational
Performance Commitment—a guarantee to corporate customers that its on-time and
cancellation performance would remain above at least one of its two major
competitors, backed up by the promise of compensation—it was not much of a
gamble. After all, the carrier had just come off a year in which it had nearly
10 times the number of perfect completion days as both United Airlines and
American Airlines combined. This year, however, the Delta sales team, led by
Somers, has worked hard to show the guarantee is more than a gimmick. "Customers
were the ones telling us we were not taking enough credit for operational
excellence," Somers said. "We created this to be the first in the
industry with a service-level agreement to stand by our performance and make
sure it was more visible to customers and the industry."
This year, United Airlines followed Delta and launched its
own operations guarantee to corporate clients, with a similar promise but
different metrics. For example, United measured performance across its full
network, while Delta measured only mainline domestic flights. Not to be
outdone, Delta tweaked its own guarantee this summer, expanding it to include
international and regional flight performance and including uncontrollable
delays and cancellations and mishandled baggage complaints. Additionally, Delta
developed a calculator for corporate customers to quantify the operational
performance-based savings of using Delta.
It remains to be seen whether American Airlines will jump
into the competition that Delta started, but Delta certainly plans to continue
adapting its offering, Somers said. "We are already crafting the next
step, being generated by customer feedback."