Delta Getting Ready to Say So Long to Song

Delta Airlines is getting rid of Song, the low-fare service it launched in April 2003 primarily to try to stop customers from defecting to JetBlue.

However, Delta said it will keep and expand some of the elements of the Song service, first to its transcontinental flights and then to any flight longer than 1,750 miles.

Those elements will include leather seats, live television, on-demand video and MP3 choose-your-music programming for all passengers.

Completely eliminated as of May, will be anything that identified Song as a separate brand, including the aircraft´s white and lime green paint job. Song´s separate Web site and toll-free telephone number for direct bookings also will cease to exist.

Delta had reconfigured the fleet to have 199 coach seats and no first class, thereby spreading its fixed costs to more seats and narrowing the cost-per-available-seat-mile gap between itself and JetBlue.

With Song´s demise, however, Delta is reconfiguring those aircraft to reinstall 26 first class seats, leaving 158 in coach. That reconfiguration will last through the end of 2006.

Delta also plans to reconfigure more than 50 aircraft from its mainline fleet to the same two-class standard, with Song-style leather seating and in-flight entertainment.

Routes currently with Song service will still have Delta service, spokeswoman Benet Wilson said. But Delta has not yet decided what aircraft it will be using for them.