Delta goes darker, moodier with new cabin CMFRunway Girl

The latest salvo in the US air carrier premium travel arms race has been fired, and this time it’s Delta with a full-fleet refresh of the colour, materials and finish (CMF) inside its cabins, as well as new branding elements across its interiors.

Delta says this new look covers its “four branded cabins”, although the carrier mentions (and shows) updates to five in its materials: Delta ONE business, Delta Premium Select premium economy, First Class domestic narrowbody, Delta Comfort+ extra-legroom economy, and Main Cabin regular economy.

Of note in this context is a coalescing of the look and feel for the domestic first class and longhaul Premium Select premium economy brands: a new seat cover with the thick red cheatline will feature “breathable engineered leather” over memory foam cushions, and Delta refers to them both in practically the same breath. Does this have wider repercussions for the two cabin brands?

Aesthetically, the mood is darker, moodier, with a strong focus on the colour, materials and finish of the seats — as well as the lighting that will illuminate them.

Key new branding elements across the premium cabins include a thick red cheatline at the lumbar point on seats throughout the aircraft, as well as pops of red expanding from points where it was previously found (in Delta ONE accent points, for example) to, in the Comfort+ example, a branded tag and pops of red behind the headrest.

Regular Main Cabin seats, by contrast, seem to come with a more monochrome look and feel, with a slightly lighter blue palette and a grey-blue cheatline.

New aircraft-wide patterns — Infinite Grid and Celestial Sky — tie the aircraft together as a whole across all the cabins on board, whether that’s a two-and-a-half cabin narrowbody or a three-and-a-half cabin widebody.

Following its trend since the Northwest merger of going darker blue, Delta’s selection of colours for the new CMF palette includes a series of midnight, almost-black deep blue colourways, with lighter white visible stitching and crimson accents.

It’s also pleasing to see longhaul Delta ONE seat covers moving towards a wool-nylon blend rather than leather, giving a softer feel and more breathable seat back on those longer flights.

Amidst the half-dozen airlines working with a blue-and-red palette, it’s a solid set of CMF changes, if a little less revolutionary in aesthetic than the waffle-stitch triangles from last decade. Overall in look and feel, it’s somewhat ironic that just as British Airways’ latest aircraft cabin look and feel is giving Delta, Delta’s are now looking rather more like British Airways’ used to.

Rollout speed will be key, however, particularly in the context of a still-creaky interiors supply chain, though the focus on CMF and soft-ish products like seat covers and wall effects should limit delays.

A Delta spokesperson confirms to RGN that the US major is not making any changes to the physical seating platforms beyond the new trim and finish.

In terms of the arms race, one could perhaps gaze across the concourse to the United Next rollout, as experienced by RGN’s Jason Rabinowitz recently.

Interestingly, the airline is kicking off the programme with a retrofit, which it will presumably be running via its Delta TechOps in-house MRO outfit: an older Boeing 757 will be the first to see the upgrades in late 2024, with an Airbus A350 to follow “in early 2025”.

The new trim and finish “will roll out across our fleet over the next few years. By end of 2025, any new aircraft will come in this trim and finish. We will also retrofit existing aircraft,” Delta’s spokesperson tells RGN.

With its 100-aircraft order of Boeing 737 MAX 10s still delayed, the 757 retrofit may be yet another extension for these venerable birds, many of which are well into their thirties, and indeed some of which were recently updated to the previous cabin standard.

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