Delta Air Lines' chief executive Gerald Grinstein may add more longer-haul routes, spend more on customer service and amenities and cede some US market share in a bid to help ensure the airline's survival, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday.

In discussing Grinstein's plans the newspaper cited people familiar with his thinking and accounts of recent discussions among senior management and investors.

"Our aim should be to become a long-haul carrier," Grinstein told employees this summer, according to several people who were present, the newspaper said. Asked whether that idea sounded like the last, failed strategy of now defunct Pan Am in the 1980s, Grinstein said, "No, that's the future," the newspaper said, citing the people.

The shift in strategy would take place as Atlanta-based Delta tries to negotiate USD$1 billion of concessions from its pilots, and staunch a near USD$4 million a day cash drain in the first half of this year.

Delta, which ended the half with USD$2 billion of cash, last week said it is tapping its cash reserves to pay expenses, and said it expects its cash balance to fall at a level consistent with the first half decline.

Analysts have said the carrier might need to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as soon as this autumn.

Grinstein believes Delta can charge perhaps 10-15 percent more than low-cost carriers, by providing better service, at a time security concerns have made flying less pleasurable, the newspaper said.

Counter to longtime industry conventional wisdom, Grinstein is suggesting that Delta abandon some US routes into regional hubs, and expand routes and amenities for flights across the Atlantic, the United States and to Latin America, the paper said.

Seventy percent of Delta passengers connect through one of its US hubs, but many of the flights lose money, it said.

Grinstein has also criticized Song, Delta's low-fare airline-within-an-airline launched last year.

At recent meetings, he called Song and the former Delta Express "mistakes," joking that he would like to add "Swan" before Song's name, the newspaper said, citing unnamed people present at recent meetings.

(Reuters)