A swan song for an airline brand

After pouring two years and tens of millions of dollars into promoting its Song brand, bankrupt Delta Air Lines Inc. said yesterday it will merge the lower-fare operation back into its mainline carrier next spring, but roll out some Song innovations throughout Delta.

Starting in May, Delta will repaint and redeploy the 48 Song Boeing 757 jets -- known for having leather upholstery and seat-back video entertainment consoles at all 199 seats -- on transcontinental and other long-haul Delta routes. Next year it also will convert about 50 of its more than 400 other jets with Song-style leather seats and perks.

Just how the changes will affect travelers at Boston's Logan International Airport, where Song flies to five Florida cities as well as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, won't become clear for several months, company executives said.

Song 757s on Boston-Florida routes could be replaced by standard, less-plush Delta jets, but could replace Delta jets on long-haul routes from Boston, including current nonstops to Salt Lake City and one-stops to Denver and Portland, Ore. Delta said it will focus on shifting the current Song jets to routes of 1,750 miles and farther by 2007. Including subsidiaries such as Song, the Delta Shuttle, and the Delta Connection commuter service, Delta is the second biggest airline at Logan after American Airlines, ranked by passenger volume. Delta flies 22 nonstop routes from Boston now, including its hourly New York shuttle and 12 daily flights to its main hub in Atlanta.

Delta executives yesterday sought to portray their decision not as abandoning the Song concept, but seeking to apply its best features across Delta as the airline fights to emerge from bankruptcy protection and return to profitability.

''This is a great opportunity for us to bring all that we have learned from Song and its creativity and innovation into Delta," said Joanne Smith, Song president, who will hold that job through May while also serving as a Delta vice president of marketing. Smith said she expects Delta to adopt Song's innovations in food service, such as offering organic salads and gourmet sandwiches aimed at health-conscious travelers.

Although it has become a well-known brand name in the last two years, Song flies out of only 16 cities, and it has no presence in Delta's Atlanta megahub. Switching the globally known, 70-year-old Delta brand to the newer Song was not considered as an option, Smith said.

The plane Song renamed ''Big Papi" this autumn in honor of Red Sox slugger David Ortiz will keep its moniker until at least the spring. Another Boston Song innovation, a new menu developed by Chef Peter Davis of Henrietta's Table and the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, was scheduled to run only from November through January before likely getting updated by a chef in another Song market.

In just two years, Song has made big inroads at Logan. Counted as a separate brand, Song last year ranked as the fifth biggest carrier at Logan, serving 1.75 million passengers, or 6.7 percent of Logan's total, according to Massachusetts Port Authority statistics. That put Song just after mainline Delta, which ranked fourth with 2.1 million passengers, or 7.9 percent of the total.

Ray Neidl, an aviation industry stock analyst with Calyon Securities Inc., said it made sense for Delta to collapse Song back into Delta to save money on marketing and avoid customer confusion.

Although other airlines, including United with its Ted subsidiary, have tried to set up low-cost divisions to compete with fast-growing and highly profitable Southwest Airlines Co. and JetBlue Airways Corp., Neidl said that model ''has never worked in the past, and there was no reason to believe that it would in the future, even though the Song product proved popular with customers." Delta, he said, had more success with running a low-cost operation than previous attempts by other legacy airlines, ''and the lessons it learned on how to run a more simplified operation through Song it will now incorporate into its domestic operation."

As it returns the Song 757s to Delta service, Delta will reconfigure the existing one-class airliners with 26 first-class seats, in hopes of attracting lucrative business travelers.

The Delta aircraft that will be converted to the Song interior cabin style will be refitted with personal entertainment systems offering 24 channels of live TV, 10 channels of on-demand video, and interactive video games and music programming, Delta chief executive Gerald Grinstein said.

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.