Delta built a whole airline to fight JetBlue — then folded it back in

In 2003, with low-cost carriers eating the leisure market, Delta Air Lines launched Song: a separate brand of all-economy Boeing 757-200s flying Northeast-to-Florida and transcontinental leisure routes, marketed at 'hip, style-conscious professional women' with leather seats, personal entertainment and organic snacks. It began flying on 15 April 2003 and grew to 48 aircraft serving 22 destinations across the U.S. and Caribbean.

Song's problem was timing, not concept. Delta filed for bankruptcy in September 2005 under crushing fuel costs, and a parent reorganizing in court could not sustain a second brand with its own marketing, product and labor complexity. On 28 October 2005 Delta announced Song would be discontinued; the last flight, number 2056 from Las Vegas to Orlando, ran on 30 April 2006, and operations formally ceased on 2 May.

The reintegration was unusually clean: all 48 Boeing 757-200s were reconfigured with 26 first-class seats, repainted in Delta colors, and folded into a new two-class domestic long-haul product by fall 2006. Song's leather seats and seat-back entertainment survived inside Delta mainline; the brand did not. Three years, 48 planes, one bankruptcy later, the airline against JetBlue became a cabin refresh.