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Ed Bastian has a bone to pick with Silicon Valley\u2019s marketing department.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a mistake to call anything artificial,\u201d the Delta Air Lines CEO told Fortune in a wide-ranging conversation, backstage at Great Place to Work\u2019s For All Summit in Las Vegas. \u201cYou want to scare people? Tell them that artificial intelligence is coming for you.\u201d Bastian said he refuses to use the term inside Delta, preferring instead to call it \u201caugmented intelligence\u201d \u2014 a framing he argues is more honest about what the technology actually does. \u201cI want our employees to see it as a tool to enable them to do their jobs better, not to replace them, but to enhance them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The distinction matters in practice, Bastian argued, saying Delta has no intention of using AI as a headcount-reduction tool. \u201cAt the end of the day, we know those job skills are going to change, as it always has. But one of the things with AI is it\u2019s changing more rapidly than people anticipate. And you\u2019ve got a lot of hype around it.\u201d We need to bring the pressure down, he said.<\/p>\n
Where automation frees up Delta workers from gate phones or reservation desks, he said, those people are getting redeployed to serve customers more directly. \u201cTo the extent there\u2019s less need for more people at a gate or more people on a phone, we\u2019ll redeploy those people to better serve customers even more,\u201d he said, adding that Delta has a \u201chigher calling\u201d to provide the best service and the best care, and strive to do it better, even against a punishing backdrop for air travel of late. <\/p>\n
Fuel prices loom over business<\/p>\n
Telling Fortune and Great Place to Work CEO Michael Bush onstage that \u201cpressure is a privilege,\u201d Bastian noted that fuel prices can double in 30 days, as they just have. Wars can break out. Geopolitical shocks \u2014 the kind now roiling global markets, from trade disputes to regional conflicts \u2014 ripple immediately into airline demand and costs. \u201cJust this year, look at everything that\u2019s happened,\u201d Bastian said. \u201cFuel prices spiking, wars going on, geopolitics at somewhat of a peak.\u201d Bastian said Delta\u2019s demand set is still \u201cpretty strong\u201d and \u201ccustomers are still traveling,\u201d but surging fuel prices mean pricing can\u2019t cover the cost of carrying them, even for Delta, the most profitable airline in the business.<\/p>\n
He reeled off the great names of air travel that have gone extinct, from Pan Am to TWA to Hughes. Speaking a day ahead of a reported $500 million rescue package for Spirit Airlines, struggling to exit bankruptcy, Bastian said he sees structural change coming for airlines over the next six to 12 months as carriers that compete purely on low price \u2014 and haven\u2019t returned their cost of capital in years \u2014 face the consequences of the current fuel environment. \u201cCarriers are going to have to reorganize in order to survive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bastian\u2019s obsession is making sure that Delta can absorb the next shock, whatever form it takes. He recalled that he often describes the airline in two words: \u201cdifferentiated and durable,\u201d and was asked about similarities to what Jamie Dimon calls the \u201cfortress balance sheet\u201d in his management of JPMorgan. \u201cI use that same language, a fortress balance sheet,\u201d Bastian said, but he pointed out that this mentality has existed in financial institutions for quite a few years, while \u201cairlines have not been known for them. This is, to me, is kind of the last frontier of change that Delta has to make.\u201d<\/p>\n
The data behind the culture<\/p>\n
That Delta has earned a degree of credibility with its workforce that most institutions envy right now still genuinely surprises its CEO. Delta just cracked the top 10 on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list, landing at No. 9 \u2014 its seventh consecutive year on the list and the only commercial airline to appear. Great Place to Work surveys found 88% of Delta employees say it\u2019s a great place to work. Delta also ranks No. 11 on Fortune\u2018s World\u2019s Most Admired Companies list for the 13th consecutive year \u2014 not just the top airline, but competing against the world\u2019s most admired brands in every industry.<\/p>\n
In conversation with Bush onstage at the summit, Bastian paused to stress that Delta is not just the world\u2019s largest and most profitable airline, but also most beloved by its customers. Being on the Great Place to Work list and the Most Admired List tells Bastian, he said, \u201cthat we\u2019re making progress on [our] mission.\u201d At the same time, he stressed that only being number nine is below his standards. \u201cI love it, but I\u2019m not \u2013 I\u2019m not happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bastian also said he\u2019s frankly surprised that Delta continues to rank so highly, given the turbulence of the COVID and post-pandemic era. Over the last five years, he noted, Delta has brought in somewhere between 30% and 40% new employees \u2014 an enormous cultural stress test for a 100-year-old company. \u201cI\u2019m surprised \u2014 slash impressed \u2014 with our ability to continue moving up the levels of a great place to work, given that we\u2019ve had such a large influx of new talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
The covenant that built the culture<\/p>\n
The story of how Delta earned that loyalty begins not in a boardroom, but in a bankruptcy courthouse. Twenty years ago, as Delta\u2019s CFO, Bastian walked into the Southern District of New York to file for Chapter 11. \u201cI was scared,\u201d he recalled in the conversation with Bush. \u201cBankruptcy is not a declaration of failure unless you use it for its purpose. It gives people a second chance.\u201d Standing in that room surrounded by creditors and lawyers, he made a private promise: workers who had sacrificed through pay cuts, benefit losses, and layoffs would receive the first fruits of any recovery. That pledge became Delta\u2019s profit-sharing program, which today distributes roughly 15% of the airline\u2019s profits to frontline employees. This past Valentine\u2019s Day, Delta paid out $1.3 billion. \u201cWe paid more profit sharing than all the other airlines put together,\u201d he told Bush.<\/p>\n
The more revealing test of that covenant came during COVID-19. When the pandemic wiped out the airline\u2019s revenue virtually overnight, Bastian told his leadership team he intended to get through it without laying off a single employee. \u201cThey looked at me like I\u2019d lost my mind,\u201d he recalled. More than 50,000 workers ultimately volunteered to take unpaid leaves of absence for up to two years, cutting Delta\u2019s payroll in half overnight. \u201cThey sacrificed together to get the airline not just through COVID, but through COVID even stronger,\u201d Bastian told Fortune. <\/p>\n
This has fed directly into the airline\u2019s current position and Delta thriving beyond the age of \u201crevenge travel,\u201d which he agreed was definitely a thing. But Delta is seeing something different, he said. \u201cIt was revenge travel initially. But now it\u2019s no longer revenge travel. Now it\u2019s turned into more of a lifestyle decision.\u201d Bastian said his experience shows people aren\u2019t as interested in accumulating things as in experiences, and that this will matter in the age of AI. \u201cWe live in the experience economy.\u201d He cited the declining birth rate as another factor here. \u201cPart of it is the cost and everything you\u2019ve got to do as a father of four and a grandfather of two. I understand that. But in other things, people want to invest themselves differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bastian noted that Delta has the youngest demographics in the airline industry, unusual for a premium brand, and its long-time partner American Express is growing with Gen Z and millennials, too. \u201cYounger people want to get the Amex card \u2026 They want to get the miles. They want to dream of, how soon can I get status and how can I get into that club?\u201d He shared that he relates to this because he still carries his first American Express card, the classic green design from more than 40 years ago, when he was working in New York City. \u201cI still keep that green one just for old time\u2019s sake. And that was kind of a signal that, okay, I\u2019m a professional now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The soft stuff is the hard stuff<\/p>\n
For all his talk of balance sheets and augmented intelligence, Bastian kept returning in both conversations to the same foundational point: culture is Delta\u2019s only truly uncopiable competitive asset \u2014 and the company\u2019s program around a $1,000 emergency savings fund is, in his telling, as much a product of the fortress mentality as any financial instrument.<\/p>\n
The emergency savings program consists of $1,000 deposited into a personal bank account for each of Delta\u2019s 100,000 employees, conditional on completing a financial literacy course and meeting with a financial counselor. It was born of the same logic that produced the fortress balance sheet: the idea that a financially fragile workforce cannot be durable. \u201cIf you\u2019re paycheck to paycheck and all of a sudden you\u2019ve got $5,000 sitting there, you feel better prepared to be your best self when you come to work,\u201d Bastian told Fortune. More than 85% of recipients have never touched the principal, he added, and many have added to it. The math is blunt: $1,000 times 100,000 employees equals $100 million \u2014 a sum Delta committed while still clawing back from the pandemic. \u201c[That was] at a time that we didn\u2019t really have that kind of money because we were still recovering from COVID. But I thought it was that important.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an example of that durability mentality, which Bastian said he\u2019s confident Delta will maintain through the age of AI. Asked whether Delta\u2019s workers are scared of the technology, Bastian said it\u2019s very possible. \u201cI don\u2019t know that they aren\u2019t,\u201d he said, but this is a larger issue than just one sector or one technology. \u201cYou ask people what one of the biggest challenges we have in the world today is: the lack of trust, whether it\u2019s with the government or with AI \u2014 I mean, the trust levels are pretty low. I can\u2019t do anything about the government, but I can help them understand what AI is and what it\u2019s not as it relates to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added a firm line on one question AI will not answer anytime soon: \u201cI\u2019m never getting on an airplane without two Delta pilots on it commercially, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to change anytime soon, even though I know the computers fly the planes in large respect today. People want to feel in control, and they want to see someone that\u2019s in control of the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
#mistake #Delta #CEO #Bastian #refuses #call #artificial #intelligence #scares #people<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ed Bastian has a bone to pick with Silicon Valley\u2019s marketing department. \u201cI think it\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[3248,6353,124,585,4078,5119,9628,1175,1770,363,8120,9629],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}