Delta's Ed Bastian has found a way to make Delta soar above the competition — and it involves thinking beyond the number

Running an airline is full of complex challenges including dealing with natural disasters, geopolitical turmoil, economic downturns, and countless other factors that are out of your control. Every time I get to the airport and stare at the departures board — the rows of DELAYED and AWAITING GATE warnings — I'm thankful that I am not involved with it.

Ed Bastian couldn't disagree more. Ed's practically an airline lifer and most of it has been at Delta. Though he started in 1998, he briefly left the company in 2004 in a disagreement with the direction leadership was taking it. They persuaded him to return 6 months later as CFO and he then led the company’s successful reorganization. He was appointed CEO in 2016. 

Under Ed’s leadership, Delta has consistently ranked among the most admired companies and best airlines in the world. He's gotten there by setting out on a strategy that all of his competitors had dismissed in the face of customer pressure. “The main reason people have chosen airlines in our country for many, many years was price, the lowest price and we are changing that.” Ed explained to me. “Delta is not the lowest price. It's not by far… and that premium that people are willing to pay for and the value they attach to it is something that we're after.” 

Ok, so if you’re not going to compete on price on a commodity item — “get me from this city to that city” — you have to find some pretty massive ways to stand out. I was curious how Ed has figured out a way to ignore all that the world and Mother Nature throws at airlines to craft a different path.

Here are some of my takeaways:

There are calls only the CEO can make — and he makes them

Sometimes a spreadsheet can help you make decisions. But those are usually the easy ones: Pick this color or that one? Invest in this market or that one. But a company determined not to be a commodity player has to rise above the data — after all, just about all of your competitors have the same data — and make big decisions. Ed says he loves being in that position and pointed back to the pandemic as an example.

A few months in, when the airlines were just beginning to fly again, people — including employees — were worried about safety. And so Ed said he was going to take all middle seats out of production; he'd put distance between passengers and lighten the viral load on planes. His team hated the idea. “They said, we don't have revenue, we can't afford to do it,” he recalled. “There are certain times a CEO has to decide that, and that was one that I decided to do. I just had an instinct about where we were as a company, where we were as a society, what people valued and how Delta should set the example and lead through the crisis."

In fact, Ed said, “We actually generated more revenues per plane by not selling the seats than our competitors generated.” 

More recently, Ed had to go against his team when it came to Delta’s Skymiles loyalty program. The company realized all the success they were having was making the loyalty program unwieldy — too many miles to too many passengers and not enough seats or lounge access. "It was starting to dilute the quality,” Ed explained. In the fall, they made a change.

“We knew this was not going to be fun,” he recalled. He wasn’t wrong. Customers went ballistic and the complaints piled in. Ed made a call: He acknowledged they had gone too far and pulled back on some of the changes. (You can read the comments yourself here.)

You need to think beyond your product — the customer experience starts before and after they interact with you

Ed talked about the need to “focus on what you can control and think differently about the things that you don't control as to how you can have influence.” For Delta, that meant 10 years ago figuring out how to handle rising fuel costs — to make the input part of the company vs just a factor in how it runs. Delta made a strategic decision to buy an oil refinery and “eliminate the middleman,” which paid off for them in the long term, big time. “Last year we saved $800 million dollars off our fuel bill. That refinery cost us $150 million to buy ten years ago.” 

He talked about improving the terminals where Delta lands and even the security process. While Delta might not control every one of those touchpoints, it impacted how flier thought of their experience on his airline — they boarded annoyed. So he’s investing to change the experience.

But in the end, your product has to be amazing

For all Ed’s big calls and expansive thinking, he understands the importance of building adaptable teams who can focus on day-to-day logistics and improvements. “The core of everything we do at Delta is based on delivering a reliable service and product,” he told me. “You know, if we're not on time, if we're not delivering your bags as scheduled, if we're not where you want us to be. All the other stuff just doesn't matter.” It’s understanding how to maintain that balance that makes for a resilient organization that can withstand any amount of turbulence. 

To keep up with these conversations and be inspired by the world’s top leaders stories, subscribe to #ThisisWorking: linkedin.com/thisisworking

And be sure to tune into the latest This is Working podcast where we dive deeper into Ed’s leadership advice Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

🎧 Apple: https://bit.ly/ThisIsWorkingEdBastianApple

🎧 Spotify: https://bit.ly/ThisIsWorkingEdBastianSpotify

On LinkedIn’s video series This is Working, I sit down with top figures from the world of business and beyond to surface what they've learned about solving difficult problems. See more from CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch, PwC Global Chair Bob Moritz, Merck Group CEO Belén Garijo, J&J CEO Joaquin Duato, former US President Barack Obama, top executive coach Mark C. Thompson, Kellogg’s Francesca Cornelli, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, cosmetics legend Bobbi Brown, F1’s Toto Wolff, and many more.