Major: Delta Updates Fare Types & Branding, With Basic, Classic, Extra

Delta Air Lines has just announced plans to introduce new product names and travel experiences for flights as of this fall. The changes include more than just updated branding, though. Let’s discuss the details, which are live effective immediately, for flights as of October 1, 2025.

Delta rebrands and simplifies product names

Let’s start with the more minor change, which you’ll immediately see for flights as of October 1, 2025. Delta is tweaking the names of its various products:

• Delta Main is replacing Main Cabin (Delta’s standard economy product); furthermore, Basic Economy will become a type of Delta Main fare, rather than being listed separately
• Delta Comfort is replacing Delta Comfort+ (Delta’s extra legroom economy seating)
• Delta First is replacing First Class (Delta’s standard domestic first class)
• Delta Premium Select and Delta One remain as before (Delta’s premium economy and business class, respectively)

As you can tell, there’s nothing extreme here. The idea is just that each product type has “Delta” at the beginning, to take a more consistent approach to product branding. The names of each product have also been shortened, and for good reason, as I’ll explain below…

Delta adds Basic, Classic, and Extra fare options

Here’s where it gets interesting. Delta is rebranding and simplifying its product names so that it can increasingly offer a few options for each type of fare. For now, Delta is promoting this in the context of Delta Main, which “now includes three experience options allowing you to better tailor your journey.” So there are Delta Main Basic fares, Delta Main Classic fares, and Delta Main Extra fares.

What’s included with each of these fares?

• Delta Main Basic offers the same as the previous Basic Economy option, including seat assignments after check-in, Zone 8 boarding, cancelation with a fee for a partial eCredit, no mileage or MQD earning, and no Sky Club entry
• Delta Main Classic is the standard Main Cabin fare, including seat assignments at booking, Zone 6 or 7 boarding, cancelation for an eCredit without a fee, 5x miles and MQD earning, and upgrades with Medallion satus
• Delta Main Extra offers Zone 5 boarding, 7x miles per dollar spent, higher priority for upgrades, fully refundable fares back to the original form of payment, same day standby, and more

Essentially, Classic fares will be what we’re used to for each fare bundle, while Extra fares will be refundable and offer more perks. For now, Basic fares are only in economy. So to break it down, here are the fare types:

• Delta Main Basic
• Delta Main Classic
• Delta Main Extra
• Delta Comfort Classic
• Delta Comfort Extra
• Delta First Classic
• Delta First Extra
• Delta Premium Select Classic
• Delta Premium Select Extra
• Delta One Classic
• Delta One Extra

Delta’s motivation with these changes is pretty clear

So, why is Delta suddenly updating its fare branding and types in this way? It seems like there are a couple of motivations.

For one, we know that Delta wants to unbundle even premium fares, and introduce “basic business class.” So this new fare structure is the first step to making that a reality. As mentioned above, for now we’re only seeing “Basic” as part of the Delta Main fare type, but now that can easily be expanded to premium fare types as well. Get ready for Delta Comfort Basic, Delta First Basic, Delta One Basic, etc.

Second, it’s clear that the airline is trying to get people to buy up from the Classic to Extra fare, by including more things with the more premium bundle. For example, Delta Main Extra now offers higher upgrade priority than Delta Main Classic. Looking at the terms:

Medallion Members with Delta Main Extra tickets will receive “tie-breaker” prioritization over Main Classic experiences within the Complimentary Upgrade Hierarchy, after Medallion Status, product purchased, and Million Miler status.

So yeah, this is Delta’s latest effort to get people to buy up to a higher fare. After elite tier and Million Miler status, Main Extra vs. Main Classic is the tie breaker for an upgrade. Then again, given how few seats there are to upgrade to, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to pay extra just for that. For so long, we’ve seen airlines try to get people to upfare from a basic fare to a standard fare, but now that’s being taken to the next level.

Bottom line

Delta is rebranding and updating its fare types. This isn’t just a marketing change, but it has significant implications. We’ll now see Delta introduce Basic, Classic, and Extra fares within bundles.

While Basic is for now only available in Delta Main, this makes it easy for Delta One Basic to be introduced in the future, which we know is in the cards. Furthermore, this is also part of Delta’s effort to get customers to pay more for flights and upfare, as booking an Extra ticket now gets you higher upgrade priority than booking a Classic ticket.

What do you make of Delta’s updated fare types and branding?