Pam Elledge on July 1 assumed the top sales and distribution position at Delta Air Lines, becoming the third new vice president of sales at a major U.S. airline this year. Elledge—who assumed leadership of Delta's revenue generation efforts at a critical moment for the financially challenged airline—has replaced Lee Macenczak, who was promoted to chief human resources officer. On the international front, Delta's North American sales team now is selling to corporate clients the complete range of services offered by SkyTeam partner Korean Airlines, an arrangement Delta called a first between U.S. and Asian carriers.
Elledge, a 24-year Delta veteran, most recently served as director of sales and distribution. She now is tasked with managing and expanding the $11 billion in revenue generated by Delta sales and distribution channels. "All airlines in the past have been guilty of making things too complicated, so now anything we do in sales or anywhere else in the company, must be focused on customer needs," Elledge said. "Within the next year, a big focus will be channel parity. Whether customers are dealing with reservations, airport processes or delta.com, they will get the support they need. A huge amount of resources have been committed to that effort." Elledge also said Delta must continue to focus on developing and maintaining key relationships with corporate and agency clients. "We are in a world where all agreements will not be the same," she said. "We will have closer alignment with strategic partners rather than trying to be all things to all people."
In terms of distribution, a major ongoing Delta initiative is continuous enhancement to its Web site. "We have a vision and have allocated a great deal of funding to create an improved shopping experience and to make delta.com as easy as and more competitive than any other online agency booking tool," Elledge said. She noted that the carrier has seen growth in corporate direct bookings, especially for simple, repetitive domestic trips. Delta "in two or three months" expects to have possible global distribution system models ready to replace or augment content-for-discount agreements now in place with Sabre, Galileo and Worldspan. "New economic models are emerging, and we have seen an openness by GDSs to be more creative," Elledge said. "One of our top challenges is ensuring that distribution costs are sustainable."
Delta, which followed America West Airlines and US Airways this year in naming a new top sales executive, also named Jorge Fernandez vice president international, replacing Paul Matsen who earlier this year was promoted to senior vice president and chief marketing officer
(BTN, June 21). Fernandez previously had served as director of Latin America and the Caribbean and now also is responsible for Pacific and transatlantic operations and the carrier's international and alliance strategies, including SkyTeam development and other codeshare relationships. He has been with Delta since 1999 and, along with Elledge, now reports to Matsen.
Meanwhile, Delta's corporate salesforce in the North American market now represents Korean Airlines, the SkyTeam alliance's Asian representative. Delta said the arrangement conceptually is similar to Northwest Airlines' sales representation of partner KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in the North American market. "Asia always has been an area where we have not had a lot of strength," said Steve Smith, Delta managing director of corporate sales. "Korean's network through Seoul to beyond points in Asia provides more opportunities for U.S. companies and Korean companies with operations in the United States."
Delta corporate sales personnel will sell Korean services to such markets as China and other intra-Asian routes not previously covered by Delta-Korean code sharing. The two carriers secured antitrust immunity for U.S. operations two years ago
(BTN, Aug. 12, 2002). Korean said it will use a corporate contract data aggregation and decision support system furnished by Prism Group and already in place at Delta.
"The synergies between Delta's corporate presence and reputation and Korean's capacity and route structure via Seoul Incheon Airport to all of Asia will result, we believe, in an increase in marketshare and revenue for both Korean Air and Delta Air Lines," said K.C. Oh, Korean Air general manager and director of passenger marketing for the Americas.
Unlike the Northwest-KLM arrangement, the Delta-Korean deal is not a joint venture and does not include travel agency nor consolidator sales.