State of the Airlines

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

NEWS: The Next Verse for Song

With the spotlight burning bright on Delta Airlines and their recent fare restructuring and billion dollar losses its easy to forget that their low fare spin off Song is still around. But Delta Airlines released a couple of tidbits that put their little brother into the news today. First is the announcement they will be expanding Song's service from JFK to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, San Juan and Aruba (mmmmmm...Aruba). This expansion coincides with the arrival of 12 new aircraft which will bring their fleet to 36. Next, Delta announced that current VP of Marketing Joanne Smith will become the president of Song upon the departure of John Selvaggio. Cool, I'll bet you can count the number of female airline president's on one hand. And before anybody gets all whipped up about that comment its simply an observation. Anyway, I'm kind of fascinated to see what Delta is going to do with Song. With Delta evolving towards the low fare carrier model and Song already there what will the differentiation be? Is Song simply a prototype for the new Delta?