Delta Gets Smart & Coelacanth

I was just thinking this morning about a women's publishing collective I co-founded in Baltimore. We were literary guerilla warriors of sorts, plastering poetry and fiction all over town in the form of broadsheets. It was heartening how hungry the community seemed to be for the work we offered and how quickly what we doing caught on. In a few short months our little group was creating quite a buzz.

We decided to publish an anthology of the work we had published and hold a reading in a public art space next to the Charles movie theater, most notably famous due to it's connection with "I deal in irony like a drug" filmmaker John Waters and his longtime colleague Pat Moran the theater and performance space's co-owner.

Anyway we put out flyers for the reading with the requisite publicity shots (a very diverse group of girls goofing off w/ a statue of Edgar Allen Poe -- I had my hand on his thigh and my friend Dori was putting lipstick on old dude). We were very specific about the time, location, event, etc. The thing we understood very well about marketing is what Delta is now doing. At the bottom of our flyer we printed in very bold print two important words, which as a former professional organizer I constantly advise groups to do over and over again, the words -- FREE FOOD.

We set an attendance record that for the space that I believe was never met again. I wish I could remember the name of place. This was 1991 or 2 and sadly I've lost a few too many brain cells. The name of our collective was Coelacanth - a species of fish which had been rediscovered off the coast of Africa after it had long been thought to extinct for millions of years. That was our metaphor. Writing as a process of rediscovery.

Speaking of fish, my new betta, Gills, is doing very well. He is pretty feisty which I really like.


Delta to offer free snacks, end food sales
Wed Mar 9, 6:39 AM ET

Business - USATODAY.com
By Barbara De Lollis, USA TODAY
After nearly two years, Delta Air Lines (DAL) next month will stop selling food on its U.S. flights.

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Instead, the No. 3 carrier will hand out free munchies to coach passengers.
Now, Delta offers coach passengers on flights of more than four hours bagels, salads and sandwiches for $8 or less. Coach passengers on shorter flights receive a free snack.
Starting April 3, Delta will scrap its food sales and offer a free, expanded snack selection to coach passengers. As is the case now, coach passengers on Delta flights of less than 90 minutes will receive no food. The new policy applies to flights in the USA, Canada and to some Latin America and Caribbean destinations.
Also on deck: Following American (AMR), Delta will eliminate pillows from its cabins, and alcohol prices will go up a dollar to $5.
In making the food switch, Delta becomes the first big U.S. airline to back away from the trend toward onboard food sales.
Delta's Paul Matsen says the airline is changing because the food-sale program is difficult to manage, causes confusion and goes against Delta's push for simplification.
Most major airlines have eliminated coach meal service since Sept. 11, 2001, and started selling food on longer flights. American and Northwest both began selling snacks and food on flights since February. Discounters such as Southwest (LUV) have taught travelers to expect little more than a bag of pretzels or peanuts.
Delta coach passengers will get to choose from granola bars, multigrain chips, honey-roasted peanuts and animal crackers. On longer flights, they'll also get a snack box with crackers, cheese, raisins and Oreos.
Delta now sells food on about 15% of its U.S. flights. But Matsen says that only about 20% of passengers on those flights have been buying items.
"We've learned that customers greatly prefer to have a choice of free snacks on board," Matsen says.
The switch to more free snacks will be about a wash financially for Delta, which lost more than $5 billion last year. The airline might see modest savings from handling prepackaged foods with a long shelf life.
Delta's Song flights will continue to sell food, because Song doesn't offer any free snacks, and flight durations tend to be long.
Snacks - free or otherwise - are becoming more common on airlines. This month, Northwest began rolling out a $3 snack box. United says that its $5 snack boxes are so popular on Ted flights that it's "seriously considering" selling them on United flights, spokeswoman Robin Urbanski says.
Continental (CAL), meanwhile, remains the only U.S. airline that still offers free meals to coach passengers on flights longer than two hours around meal times. On a lunchtime flight between Houston and New York, for instance, a customer might be given a packet of baby carrots, chips, deep-dish pizza or turkey sandwich and a piece of chocolate.