For months, Delta has been ramping up its play to become a more luxurious, premium-first airline. Today, the company announced it will be redesigning its aircraft interiors “from nose to tail” to match that mission.
According to an announcement released this morning, Delta’s new cabin design will debut on a narrow-body Boeing 757 aircraft later this fall, in advance of the brand’s 2025 centennial anniversary. By the end of 2025, all new aircraft deliveries will feature the new cabin design, and existing aircraft will be retrofitted within the next few years.
The new cabins also will include updated seating materials, a swankier color palette, and mood-setting lighting.
“Premium” brand positioning takes off
The transformation is part of Delta’s larger goal to reposition itself from a mass-market brand to a “premium” one, which has been months in the making.
Last year, 55% of the company’s revenue came from “premium and non-ticket” sales, which are a mix of upgraded seats and other add-ons. Early this year, the company announced plans to open a series of ultra-luxe airport lounges in various U.S. cities, an update that came just months after it attracted widespread ire for making it more difficult to access its existing lounges. The first ultra-luxe Delta lounge opened in New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport this June, complete with a spa, shower suites, a brasserie restaurant, and an outdoor terrace.
Delta’s competitors are getting in on premium-ification, too, in order to attract and retain customers. Southwest recently announced that it will ditch its signature open-seating model in favor of assigned seating with more premium add-ons, such as upgraded seats with extra legroom. Exclusive airport lounges are also on the rise, with United Airlines, Emirates, and Air France all boasting their own private oases in various global locations.
A more “premium” cabin
The premium-ification of Delta’s new cabins starts with seating material changes across its various flight tiers. Seat covers in the Delta One cabin—the brand’s most luxurious seating option for long-haul international flights—will be replaced with a wool-and-nylon blend, which the company says is better at “regulating temperatures.”
“We know through research that sleep is the number-one priority for our Delta One customers, and getting a good night’s sleep is one of the drivers to purchase a seat in that cabin,” says Michael Steinfeld, Delta’s manager of onboard product. “Knowing that, we set out to improve the sleep experience for our Delta One customers, and selected a new material for those seats that is more breathable and more comfortable for a good night’s rest.”
For fliers in Delta Premium Select and First Class, the next two flight tiers, respectively, memory foam cushions will add extra comfort to seats. Delta will also fit its Comfort+ and Main Cabin seats with memory foam cushions in wide-body aircrafts—though on all other aircrafts, the seat materials used for these two tiers will not change. Delta will, however, replace the existing engineered-leather seating covers with ones featuring fresh red accent stripes, which reflect the cabins’ modernized color palette.
Redesigning interiors for “deceleration” mode
“We are moving away from the brighter blue shade that’s been characteristic of Delta’s interiors for many decades and instead leaning into darker, sleeker colors,” Steinfeld says. “Our goal is to create a calming atmosphere with colors and materials that are understated, elegant, and timeless—similar to how a customer might decorate their own home. We’ve used more neutral tones that are offset with pops of red, Delta’s heritage color—all with the goal of creating a moment of deceleration for our customers the second that they step into the aircraft.”
To aid in that “deceleration” process, Delta has also designed a new in-flight lighting experience. Preprogrammed settings include a “warm and inviting” phase for boarding, a hue for mealtimes that’s meant to mimic a “candlelit dinner,” and a sleep-inducing wind-down sequence. “As the lights dim for sleep, we borrow from the sunset and slowly remove blue light while bringing in warm amber tones that are reminiscent of a sunset glow,” Delta’s announcement page reads. “When it’s time to wake up, the cabin slowly brightens into morning and daylight.”
Smaller design details will include new motifs on the aircrafts’ bulkheads, brighter bathrooms, and seat tags to distinguish the various cabins.
Building a “different” Delta
As fliers become increasingly willing to invest in added perks, Delta wants to meet those interests—whether it’s on the ground in an opulent lounge or in-flight with its newly refurbished cabins.
“We want to make sure that when we go into this second 100 years, [customers] see ‘premium’ in everything we do, including the environment where they will spend their time with us,” said Ranjan Goswami, Delta’s senior vice president of customer experience design, in today’s announcement video.
“From the moment you walk onboard, you will notice this is a different Delta,” Goswami added.