Delta Air Lines has announced an array of new passenger-pleasing improvements to the airport and inflight experience, including a new AI-powered app, a cloud-based inflight entertainment, and a partnership with Google to offer free access to YouTube Premium for SkyMiles frequent flyer members.
Taking to the stage of the iconic Las Vegas Sphere for a keynote speech at CES 2025, the world’s largest tech conference, chief executive Ed Bastian set out his vision of how the airline plans to use technology to “transform the travel experience.”
One of the highlights of Bastian’s speech was Delta’s ambitious plans to build artificial intelligence into its mobile app as part of a new service that the airline has dubbed ‘Delta Concierge.’
“Our vision for Delta Concierge is that it will serve as an AI-powered personal assistant that combines the context of who our customers are and how they like to travel, with the deep knowledge and insights we’ve built as the world’s most reliable airline,” Bastian said during his keynote speech.
Like other AI models, Delta Concierge will take some time to train but the Atlanta-based carrier is hopeful that the system will eventually anticipate the needs of passengers and then provide contextualized guidance throughout the travel journey.
The model could even take action on behalf of passengers, potentially even before the passenger knows they need to do anything. The first release of Delta Concierge is, however, a little more basic.
In its first iteration, Delta Concierge will notify customers about upcoming passport expiration and visa requirements, while future releases will be able to provide passengers with destination-specific information.
In-app wayfinding will guide passengers to check-in, baggage drop, and the best-available TSA line, while the AI bot will eventually allow passengers to automatically connect to Delta’s inflight Wi-Fi and Delta Sync seatback entertainment.
Perhaps one of the most useful features of the initial version of Delta Concierge is an exclusive partnership with the sharing app Uber, which allows SkyMiles members to earn 1 mile per dollar spent on UberX rides to and from airports, 2 miles per dollar on premium rides and 3 miles per dollar on Uber Reserve rides.
SkyMiles members will also earn 1 mile per dollar spent on eligible restaurant and grocery orders through Uber Eats. The exclusive airline tie-up with Uber, unsurprisingly, means the end of Delta’s SkyMiles deal with rival ride-hailing service Lyft.
Onboard, Delta has outlined plans for a big upgrade of its inflight entertainment system with 4K HDR QLED displays on the way, as well as Bluetooth headphone pairing and a massive 96-terabyte storage system to allow even more movies and TV shows to be loaded – in fact, this is 50 times the storage capacity of Delta’s existing inflight entertainment system.
Delta also plans to bring helpful travel assistance features to its seatback screens, with an ‘experience planner’ and ‘arrival mode’ that will provide helpful information for onward connections and the baggage carousel number for passengers who have checked in a bag.
Customers who don’t speak English will also benefit from a new text message system that will translate important onboard announcements and display a message on screen in the passenger’s preferred language choice.
Along with its new partnership with Uber, the airline also unveiled a deal with YouTube that will give Sky Miles members access to the video-sharing platform’s ad-free premium platform for free while they are onboard.
But while Bastian’s keynote speech was impressive, it wasn’t without issues. First, eagle-eyed attendees noticed that an immersive video of an Airbus A350 taxiing to the gate was, in fact, the exact same plane that clipped a regional CRJ-900LR aircraft at Atlanta Airport last September, slicing the smaller plane’s tailfin off.
And then there was the reminder that airline IT is rarely foolproof, as rumors started circulating that Delta was forced to enforce a temporary nationwide ground stop during the keynote speech because of a computer issue.
Aviation watchers looked on closely as Delta planes remained on the tarmac for nearly 30 minutes before operations, thankfully, got back up and running.
