Song?

What's the deal with Song airlines and why does Delta think the idea makes sense? It just doesn't compute for me, so I must be missing something. We ended using Song because they were the only carrier offering reasonable rates on a direct round trip between LAX and Tampa. They wouldn't have been my first choice (I would have been fine with Delta), but we wound up there anyway.

While they use many standard Delta features (Delta terminals and ticket agents for example and I noticed Delta branded hand soap in the rest room) they also have their own fleet and some interesting changes from other airlines. All tickets are coach, that's the only kind of seat they have. Food, even on cross country flights is a paid feature. There are no pillows and there is a real shortage of blankets. Don't take no for an answer in asking for a blanket before they are ready to pass them out, you might not get one. They've also added an interesting wrinkle to the clean up process before landing when they collect all the last bits of trash and the blankets (that just seemed odd to me). They do sell a $5 inflatable pillow which I might try on the flight back just to say that I've done it.

Rather than the 767's Delta normally uses for cross country flights, we flew in a 757 seating six across. They give out inexpensive headsets (ear buds actually) to everyone on board and each seat has a small television monitor (front seats use a collapsable monitor, all others use one built into the back of the seat in front). The audio connection is a typical stereo mini-din connection rather than the silly two prong thing they've used on airlines for years. Rather than a movie, they have DishTV based programming with 24 channels. I ended up watching CNN for a while, then the History channel to fill the time. They've also got a full time chef on staff (from the W in New York I think) who has apparently created a number of specialty items for the airline. I didn't try it so I can't speak to the quality. Paying for airline food, chef or no just didn't make a lot of sense.

The only thing left to mention is that the folks who act as airport personnel and flight stewards were apparently chosen for good cheer, at least initially. These people do all kinds of nutty things including leading pre-landing stretching exercises. I felt a bit like I'd been transported back to a junior high school gym class but most of the people in front of us joined in on the exercises (I thought everyone was nuts). The enthusiasm and friendliness seemed forced at times, but they've done a good job of finding people who genuinely want to help make others happy.

It's an odd duck of an airline but what do I know? It might be the perfect thing to make Delta a whole lot of money.

Update: I saw JetBlue in Tampa and thought we might be able to use them in the future, but they don't fly to Tampa from Long Beach yet. Hmmm.

I wonder if Song is meant to be used as a lever to force wage concessions which have been sited as a significant contributor to Delta's fiscal problems. I still can't make heads or tails of this darned venture.

On our flight back, the DishTV network was having issues and the channels I was looking for were AWOL (I wanted to see what was on Discovery and History, which along with A&E and one of the news channels were broadcasting dead air). No one can watch CNN for four hours plus, ESPN was doing hockey and the rest of it was pretty useless (many younger folks were watching E!). They did offer a couple kids movies (in theory), but we never even had a chance to think about buying it for Jon before the movies started. He and Sarah entertained themselves for most of the flight with the music trivia game (played amongst all the passengers) all the way home.