Delta Air Lines on Friday celebrated its annual employee profit-sharing giveaway: $1.4 billion, which amounts to about 10% of eligible employees' compensation.
It’s the Atlanta carrier’s second-largest profit sharing ever, tied with 2023‘s results and just behind 2019’s $1.6 billion. (Delta has predicted this coming year will top them all.)
The nation’s most profitable airline first announced the practice in 2007 as it emerged from bankruptcy “to allow all employees to share in the future success of Delta.”
The company then had about 39,000 employees; it has since grown to about 100,000, the largest private employer in metro Atlanta.
Its profit-sharing celebrations have grown, too. This year’s celebrations featured appearances from artists Big Boi and Timbaland, comedian Heather McMahan and the Harlem Globetrotters.
Kimberly Boykin, a customer experience manager in the reservations call center, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she looks “forward to this day … because we really celebrate our people.”
She said she’s stayed at Delta for 17 years because of those values: “They realize if they put people first, everything else will come. If they treat us right, we will treat the customers right, and it’s the domino.”
CEO Ed Bastian confirmed to the AJC that “taking good care of people” translates into dollars and profitability.
“The better job (employees) do taking care of each other and our customers, the better job we do taking care of them. The loyalty just continues to grow.”
“It’s an amazingly simple formula, but really hard to execute.”
He said they hear it from customers: They like the planes, the airports and the app, but “the most important thing is they love our people and the consistency of service delivery.”
Bastian also said its customer service policies don’t need to be federally mandated, which is something the Biden administration had been pushing for.
“Delta is the very best at customer service, and just about everything the Biden administration did, we were already doing,” Bastian told the AJC.
Delta and other airlines are now asking the Trump administration to abandon proposed rules released by the outgoing administration in December.
They would require airlines to automatically pay certain cash compensation for trip disruption, require free rebooking and free meals, lodging and transportation for stranded passengers.
Just days ago Delta and its competitors through their lobbying group A4A formally asked the Trump administration to “terminate” the proposed rules.
In a letter on Feb. 10, A4A said the rules fail “to recognize the remarkable services provided by the airline industry” and run “directly contrary to President Trump’s regulatory policies and directives.”
“We just want airlines and industry to compete on customers, not to compete on regulations,” Bastian said.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
