Delta Premium Economy Will Launch In Late 2017

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Delta has announced that it will be debuting its new Premium Economy cabin, “Delta Premium” on select international flights from “late 2017”. Delta will be the second of the big 3 US legacy airlines to offer a true Premium Economy cabin following American’s introduction of the cabin on its 787-9 Dreamliners last month.

Delta Premium

Here’s what Delta says its new product will feature:

• More space with up to 38 inches of pitch, up to 19 inches of width and up to seven inches of recline. Delta Premium seats will also offer adjustable leg rests and head rests;

• Westin Heavenly® In-Flight Blanket with pillow and a TUMI amenity kit featuring Malin+Goetz Travel Essentials, allowing customers to settle in and arrive well-rested;

• Pre-departure beverage service followed by fresh, seasonal menu selections presented with Alessi serviceware designed exclusively for Delta;

• A 13.3-inch, high resolution in-flight entertainment screen that is among the largest in its class, allowing customers to stay entertained with Delta Studio’s industry-leading library of complimentary movies, shows and games, and noise-cancelling headphones;

• In-seat power ports for large and small devices and convenient storage to keep them within reach;

• Sky Priority service, which includes faster check-in, accelerated security, priority boarding and expedited baggage service.

Delta Premium

With a 38″ wide seat Delta is in line with just about all other major airlines and only Virgin Atlantic has significantly more seat pitch with 21″.

The new Premium Economy cabin will be retrofitted to Delta’s Boeing 777 fleet from 2018 but will make its first appearance on Delta’s new Airbus A350s (arriving in fall 2017).

This will see the A350 offer the airline’s first true 3-cabin configuration with 32 Delta One suites, 48 Delta Premium Seats and 226 Economy Class seats in the main cabin.

Delta Premium

Delta has also confirmed that it will also introduce the new Delta One Suite on the A350 aircraft which is set to be the first Business Class cabin to offer seats that fully enclose the passenger from the aisle.

Bottom Line

While I’m most looking forward to trying out the new Delta One cabin on the A350 I’m also pretty interested to see how well Delta can do Premium Economy.

I just flew with Delta for the first time over the weekend (in international Business Class) and I found the service to be significantly better than what you might expect from a US airline…and that bodes well for Premium  Economy.

Delta appears to understand the need to keep passengers happy in the air (presumably to make up for keeping them so miserable with their loyalty program) and if they can manage to offer a noticeably better service in Premium Economy than in Economy they may have a new product worth trying out….at least on a daytime flight 🙂

All images courtesy of Delta