A customer at the Delta Air Lines Sky Club in the Boston airport became trapped inside the lavatory after the handle of one of the stalls became detached from the door. Surprisingly, no one reacted to her cries for assistance despite the fact that she kicked and banged on the door repeatedly. She reached for her mobile phone in a fit of desperation and dialled the number for the police. However, before they could reply, an other passenger eventually heard her and brought assistance.
There’s a part of me that wants to know if Delta’s Sky Clubs are so loud that no one can hear you scream when you’re within them. The Delta Sky Club in Boston is brand new and spans 21,000 square feet. In the afternoons and evenings, it also serves as a satellite location for Delta’s Sky Club Express. And if it were as full as the other Sky Clubs, you would assume that there would be enough people coming in and out of the restrooms for someone to hear the passenger yelling and banging on the door.
I believe that the most appropriate analogy is that Delta saw their SkyMiles elite customers and credit card holders as being in a similar position to this traveller in that they were trapped and had no other options. They believed that by increasing the requirements for elite status, allowing spend on their premium co-brands to count towards status and requiring status for unlimited lounge access that had previously been bundled with the airline’s premium co-brand, they could change the behaviour of their members to spend significantly more money on their credit cards. This was due to the fact that they had previously bundled unlimited lounge access with the airline’s premium co-brand. However, members came together to assist one another. In addition, the airline has given indications that everyone will be granted a short and partial release from the SkyMiles and lounge bathroom jail sentences.
And the fact that the toilet door breaks in Delta’s six week old lounge likely highlights that the carrier, which was once committed to providing the highest quality, has suffered an overall drop in quality since the pandemic began.
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