Upgrades clearing less? Airlines say more passengers are just paying for those first-class seats

03.12.2024 - 14:43 / thepointsguy.com / Glen Hauenstein / Delta I (I)

Have you found that elite status upgrades are harder to come by? There's a good reason.

Delta Air Lines recently revealed a head-turning statistic: 15 years ago, just 12% of passengers sitting in its domestic first-class cabin actually paid for their ticket, executives shared.

Today, it's a very different story: Around 75% of first-class passengers pay for their ticket outright, leaving a far smaller pool of seats open for passengers lucky enough to score an upgrade.

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Sure, a Delta executive or investor celebrates this trend. It means droves of customers are paying for the high-dollar seats — a shift that's evolved the front cabin's reputation from a money-loser to a profit engine.

"The biggest loss leaders on the airplane in 2010, and before, were the premium products," Delta president Glen Hauenstein recalled, speaking on the company's Nov. 20 investor day.

"We didn't sell them," Hauenstein said. "We gave them away."

Of course, by "giving them away," Hauenstein largely meant free upgrades for elite status members.

Suffice it to say, those upgrades used to come easier than they do nowadays — a fact known all too well by Medallion members who often find significant company on the upgrade priority list.

Complimentary upgrades are a universal Delta Medallion elite status perk for domestic flights, but your chances of actually clearing into first class are far higher as you climb the status ladder. Delta also awards confirmable upgrade certificates that can be redeemed at booking or over the phone as a choice perk for higher-level Platinum Medallion and Diamond Medallion members.

To Hauenstein's point, though, the carrier has, increasingly, found improved luck simply selling its premium seats.

A big reason is that Delta has narrowed the gap between the price tag for its coach and first-class seats, Hauenstein said. In 2010, he noted, a Delta first-class seat was roughly 13 times the price of a coach seat.

Today, it varies from one flight to another, but the gap is a lot closer. For instance, Delta First comes in at roughly 2 1/2 times the cost of a main cabin ticket on these January transcontinental itineraries from Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

"We brought the separation way down. We've made them much more affordable," Hauenstein told investors. "And guess what — when you make something affordable, people want to buy it."

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It's not just Delta.

Other major U.S. airlines have told TPG that they've also had better luck, in recent years, at getting customers to actually pay to fly in their higher-end