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Comment by ayakura | Hacker News Reader

This article sounds like an ad, but in any case cutting cost and achieving higher customer satisfaction are all good things so props to Delta for that.

However, I have to wonder why the article makes it seem like only Delta is using data for turbulence avoidance and not other big players. Is this a relatively new thing when it comes to Big Data in airlines?

Edit: This is an ad after all

> This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers

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If Delta is really serious about customer satisfaction, they’ll hurry up with the retirement of their old MD-80s (and MD-88s).

I’m hardly an aviation buff, but I’ve learned to identify these things by their sound from inside my house, which is 20 miles from the nearest airport (occasional departures fly over at roughly 10,000 feet).

Those old low-bypass JT8D engines make so much damn low-frequency noise. Every time I hear and feel that infrasonic rumble I think “must be an MD80”, and sure enough, if I check Flightradar24 it’s always one of those loud suckers, and always operated by Delta.

If you look at the photos they actually track pilot efficiency on the MD-88 in a separate metric than the rest of the pilots. I thought that was pretty funny.

Which photo? Are you confusing MD-88/90 with Delta Connection perhaps?

Agree that the md80s are noisy monsters, but really has very little overlap with customer satisfaction. <1% of Delta's customers are going to live close enough to an airport with Delta mad dog departures and even fewer of them will take noise at home into consideration for their satisfaction.

True— I was sort of venting and neglected to note that it wasn’t really related— but at the very least, I personally avoid flying Delta because it bugs me so much. It’s perhaps a silly reason, but it’s the truth.

Just a sample size n=1 though.

It’s coming... https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2018-1...

Customers actually like the Mad Dogs because the average cabin noise is lower; with aft-mounted engines it's only the last few rows that are loud. Everyone ahead of that gets to ride first-class-cabin-quiet even in economy.

Now near-airport-resident satisfaction is another, unrelated issue.

The notice about affiliate links may not have anything to do with Delta. The Points Guy has an affiliate-driven revenue model, so that notice might appear before all of his posts.

The article doesn't really mention that many other companies/services besides Delta. So while while there's not a 100% chance it's a Delta ad, there's a >0% chance it is.

That doesn’t mean it’s an ad. It’s not sponsored content.

It means Delta buys ads on the site.

You’re right. It’s a declaration of a conflict of interest, not a statement that the article was sponsored content.

Company culture has a lot to do with it! I work with some airlines and Delta are definitely among the most innovative and open minded. Delta also do quite a lot of their systems in-house as custom development, instead of relying on packaged turnkey garbage from oldschool integrators.

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