Delta Airlines faces lawmaker backlash on new pricing strategy

Delta Airlines is performing much better financially than many of its competitors. The Airline recently released its second-quarter earnings, announcing that it had delivered “record revenue” and generated $1.8 billion in pre-tax profit. The Airline also restored its full-year financial guidance.

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While Delta Airlines is already performing impressively, the airline will be shifting its pricing strategy. Its planned changes have caught the attention of lawmakers, though, and some are not happy about it.

Senators fear Delta Airlines flyers may soon overpay for flights.

Image source: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Delta Airlines plans to change the way it prices flights

In the July 10 earnings call, Delta Airlines President Glen Hauenstein discussed the airline’s new pricing initiative.

Essentially, Delta is implementing AI technology to price its flights. The airline will be working with a company called Fetcherr to harness consumer data and set ticket prices based on the amount that the AI tool thinks consumers are going to be willing to pay.

“What we have today with AI is a super analyst,” Hauenstein explained in the earnings call. “We have an analyst that’s working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and trying to simulate in real time – given the same inputs that an analyst sees today, what should the price points be?”

Delta Airlines is currently pricing up to 3% of domestic flights with this AI tool and hopes to expand that to 20%.

Lawmakers are concerned about Delta Airlines’ AI pricing strategy

Delta Airline’s AI plan has caught the attention of several lawmakers.

Specifically, Senator Ruben Gallego, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Senator Mark R. Warner sent a joint letter to Delta Airlines on July 21, 2025. In the letter, the Senators expressed concerns about the potential privacy issues raised by Delta’s Plan and concerns about the potential price discrimination that could result from it.

“Delta’s current and planned individualized pricing practices not only present data privacy concerns, but will also likely mean fare price increases up to each individual consumer’s personal ‘pain point' at a time when American families are already struggling with rising costs,” the senators' letter to Delta Airlines reads.

Delta Airlines faces harsh questions from lawmakers

The Senators have demanded that Delta Airlines answer a series of questions about its plan by August 4, 2025, including questions about:

The data inputs Delta will be using to train the system
How many passengers are being offered flights priced by AI
What routes are going to be affected once Delta prices 20% of its flights with AI
The steps that Delta Airlines has taken to interface with other agencies and organizations and to ensure compliance with airline regulations

These are just several of the different questions lawmakers have raised regarding Delta’s proposed plan.

Airline prices have already been on the rise

The senators’ concerns about Delta Airlines’ new pricing strategy come at a time when airline prices have already been soaring.

The Consumer Price Index for airline fares shows a 25% year-over-year price increase as of June 2025, which is the largest increase since the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis began measuring this metric in 1989.

These price increases for airline tickets show that the costs of travel are far outpacing inflation, even at a time when consumers have been struggling with overall price increases.

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With airlines like Delta implementing new techniques to try to potentially push prices even higher, consumers could find themselves paying a far steeper price than they’d prefer if they want to take a simple trip.

What can travelers do about rising prices for airfares?

Comparison shop among different airlines to try to get the best price;
Contact your lawmakers to express your concerns if you are worried about AI pricing models;
Take advantage of points and miles credit cards to try to lower travel costs.