Delta predicts Sky Club overcrowding will be 'solved' within next 2 years (mostly)
Within the next two years, Delta Air Lines' lounge overcrowding should be all but history … at least on most days, executives proclaimed this week.
"We're continually working to eradicate the lines and crowding at Sky Clubs," Delta president Glen Hauenstein said Thursday, speaking on the company's earnings calls.
It's an issue that customers and the airline have battled for years amid growth in the number of SkyMiles loyalists, Medallion elites, and Delta and American Express credit card holders.
In 2023, Delta announced sweeping loyalty program changes that included a crackdown in the number of passengers that could visit its lounges. The access overhaul included barring basic economy passengers and capping the number of annual visits allotted to certain credit cardholders (the latter restrictions took effect in February).
Delta has also aimed to thin out crowds in its standard Sky Clubs by funneling high-paying business-class passengers into its swankier Delta One Lounge facilities — which are now open in four cities: New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle.
Read more: Delta's stunning new Seattle business-class lounge is its most unique one yet
Overcrowding persists
But lounge members have still encountered packed clubs on some days — most notably, Hauenstein said, when summer thunderstorms delay flights, stranding more passengers than normal in airport terminals.
"You can't build a club big enough for lengthy delays," he said. "I think we're trying to look at alternatives that we can use as overflow in those instances."
But for days with normal operations, Hauenstein made this prediction, speaking on a call Thursday:
"We should have almost all of our crowding issues solved within the next 18 to 24 months," he said.
Solving the crowding problems
Earlier this year, Delta executives I spoke with had described the crowding crackdown as a constant "work in progress."
To be fair, the carrier is far from alone when it comes to this problem. A myriad of airlines and credit card issuers have had to contend with supply and demand problems in their outposts; recent months have brought tighter access rules for United Airlines and Capital One as well.
"We don't want people in line. There's nothing exclusive about that," chief communications officer Tim Mapes told me in January, while noting the carrier could consider opening up additional grab-and-go lounge locations, which would allow passengers to pick up food or drink items before heading to their gate.
"What we know," Mapes told me at the time, "is there's greater demand for that experience and membership in that experience than we've got, at the moment […] the capacity to serve."
Bigger clubs opening, planned
Still, that capacity will continue expanding.
Some of Delta's largest clubs across its network have opened in recent years, including an expansive 26,000 square foot D-concourse outpost at its Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) mega-hub that debuted earlier this year.
Another 34,000 square foot facility is planned to open by the end of the year at Delta's Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) hub.
"We have a lot of plans," Hauenstein said Thursday, "to continue to address the places where we are constrained."
Still to be seen: whether the carrier can truly "eradicate" its lounge crowding problems.
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