Delta cuts, simplifies fares

ATLANTA — Delta Air Lines is cutting domestic fares by up to 50 percent and scrapping its unpopular Saturday-stay requirements in a move it hopes will lure back customers to an airline struggling to avoid bankruptcy.

Other features of the plan announced today, called SimpliFares, include charging $50 instead of $100 to change tickets and declaring that no one-way coach ticket will cost more than $499 and no one-way first class ticket will cost more than $599.

The changes wouldn't mean cheaper flights for everybody. The main change would be a reduction in the sometimes large fluctuations in fares.

Delta had been testing the lower fares since August in Cincinnati, its second-largest hub.

"We're expanding SimpliFares based on feedback from our customers, who are calling for simpler, more affordable everyday fares," Delta Chief Executive Gerald Grinstein said. "Now customers can be sure that flying Delta means not only an extensive network, customer-friendly technology, strong partnerships and the rewarding SkyMiles loyalty program, it also means easy, accessible and reliable prices."

The move would make the company, the nation's No. 3 airline, more like low-cost airlines such as Southwest Airlines Co. that have remained profitable in recent years while bigger, older airlines have struggled to survive.

It also comes as Delta continues to fight to stay out of bankruptcy. The airline got a $1 billion concession from pilots, and a big loan from American Express, to avoid bankruptcy last October, but analysts have warned deep changes are needed to make Delta viable in the long term.

Delta's action got a chilly reaction from at least one rival. Northwest Airlines Corp., the fourth-largest, said fare cuts of the type Delta is implementing will hurt the industry.

"Northwest believes that 'fare simplifications' of the sort being described are revenue negative," the company said. Northwest expects that such an initiative, if it becomes general, would immediately adversely and significantly affect industry revenues."