Good morning. Ed Bastian has been the CEO of Delta Air Lines for a decade and an executive at the company for almost 30 years. As CFO and president, Bastian led the airline through a significant turnaround that began with filing for bankruptcy in 2008. It all paid off: Today, Delta is the most profitable airline in America.
Delta enjoys this title despite the fact that it gives away a chunk of profits to its 100,000 employees every year—and thanks in part to a long-term partnership with American Express, which Bastian has nurtured to be extremely lucrative. Delta-Amex cards are now responsible for over 10% of Delta’s total revenue.
I flew to Delta’s headquarters in Atlanta to interview Bastian for the Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast, and we sat among historic planes in the airline’s corporate museum hangar and talked for nearly an hour about his leadership playbook. When we spoke about his turnaround strategy, Bastian cited two other micro-turnarounds that reoriented the company: a brand overhaul and the rebuilding of team culture:
Creating a brand instead of a commodity. Two decades ago, “When you asked people why they chose an airline for their specific flight, 80% of the time it would be whoever had the lowest price,” Bastian told me. “Today, if you ask people why they choose Delta, 80% would say [it’s] because it’s Delta, because of the experience, the brand; 20% is the other stuff. So just a total flip. And so that was the most important thing, getting paid for the great service that our people do.”
Giving Delta’s people a reason to believe and the responsibility to make it work. “You have to let your people know that you’re supporting them and putting them out front, rather than the management being out front,” Bastian said. “We’re not obsessing on customers, per se, at the leadership levels, because we want to obsess over our own people, so that they can obsess over you as a customer. When your people know that you’ve got their back, amazing things can happen. That had been lost, and bringing that back, and getting their confidence and trust back, was really key.”
Given that latter point, it’s no surprise that Delta is in the top 10 of the newest edition of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For. You can find that list here.
For more on how Bastian leads, where he sees the airline industry heading, and why AI won’t knock him off his people-first approach at Delta, listen to our full interview here.—Alyson Shontell
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