Delta Air Lines Is Going After Future Business Travelers — While Still in College
Photo Credit: As part of its strategy to attract younger customers, Delta earlier this year hosted a silent disco party in New York. Passengers wore headphones to listen to music. Delta Air Lines
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Other airlines say they're adapting to what younger travelers want. But not all of them actually do it. Delta seems to be ahead of many of its competitors. And that's a good thing.
At Delta Air Lines, marketing executives have a phrase to describe customers and potential customers younger than 35 — and it's not "millennial traveler."
They prefer to call them "Emerging High Value Customers," or eHVCs, Delta chief marketing officer Tim Mapes said Thursday, and they're increasingly important to the carrier's revenues. The segment, he told investment analysts at Delta's investor day in Atlanta, will account for 50 percent of Delta's business customer sales by 2020.
This is why Delta is subtly — and not so subtly — trying to recruit younger travelers not only from the nation's most formidable employers, including elite consulting firms, but also from universities.
"They're high-yield business customers that we're catching upstream, and trying to build relations with them, in some cases while they're still in college," Mapes said.
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