#103 Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines: Raising the ceiling of possibility

In this episode of The Vertical Space, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian breaks down what truly differentiates a great airline: people and culture. Ed shares why "take care of your people first" is not a slogan at Delta — it is the operating system — and how that shows up in reliability, premium customer experience, and everyday leadership across a 100,000-person, 5,000-flights-a-day operation.

The conversation covers Delta's broader vision for a connected premium travel ecosystem spanning free fast Wi-Fi, entertainment partnerships, Uber, Wheels Up, and eVTOL integration with Joby. Ed discusses AI as augmented intelligence that empowers frontline teams, how Delta thinks about long-cycle bets and fortress balance sheets, and why air travel is not a commodity but an experience people will choose and pay for. He also shares a direct wishlist of unsolved problems in ops efficiency, maintenance, and crew utilization — and an open invitation for founders to bring real solutions.

Key Topics

• Why culture eats strategy at Delta — and how Ed keeps that from becoming a buzzword across 100,000 people
• What it actually takes to run 5,000 flights a day reliably and what metrics Ed checks first
• Delta's connected travel ecosystem — free Wi-Fi, YouTube TV, Uber, Wheels Up, and Joby eVTOL integration
• Why Ed frames AI as "augmented intelligence" and how it empowers frontline teams rather than replacing them
• Why air travel is not a commodity — and how Delta broke out of the lowest-price-wins trap
• The specific operational problems Delta most wants founders and technologists to solve
• How Delta thinks about long-cycle capital bets and maintaining a fortress balance sheet
• Ed's vision for Delta as the number one airline for the next generation

+ Read Full Transcript

Ed Bastian: Mr. Woolman, who founded the company a hundred years ago, said: "Take good care of your people first, who will then take care of your customers." That was a warning sign to the management team that if you ever lose sight of the importance of your own people, you'll never be able to really have the trust and the confidence of your customers. I know how to care for people — and listening to them, getting them the tools they need, the technologies they need, the support they need, the trust that they need, enables them to do a great job taking care of our customers.

Jim: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Vertical Space and our conversation with Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines. As CEO, Ed Bastian leads 100,000 global professionals building the world's premier international airline. Under Ed's leadership, Delta is transforming the air travel experience with generational investments in technology, aircraft, airport facilities, and most importantly Delta's employees worldwide. Since being named Delta CEO in May of 2016, he has expanded Delta's leadership position as the world's most reliable airline. In 2018 Fortune named Ed among the world's 50 greatest leaders. Most recently Time named him to the 2025 Time100, its annual list of the hundred most influential people in the world. Ed's values-based leadership propelled the airline to become the industry leader and trusted global brand, guided by empathy, humanity, and devotion to service. Ed joined Delta in 1998 as VP Finance and Controller, was named CFO in 2005, and was appointed as Delta's President in 2007.

Jim: First question we ask all of our guests: what is something that very few in the industry agree with you on?

Ed Bastian: A handful of years ago, there were few in the industry that really truly believed that an airplane ticket is an experience that people should be willing to pay a premium for — that you could differentiate on it. It's not a commodity; the lowest cost should not be the principle determinant for who gets the sale. Delta's led the charge over many, many years. What you've seen in the industry since is a significant move towards premium, towards higher quality — the experience, not just in reliability, but the entertainment on the plane, free fast Wi-Fi for customers, creating great ground experiences. Given the large lead we have in that space, it was clear for many years people didn't believe us, and now they're following us.

Jim: Your CES presentation talked about the integrated future experience. Could you talk about that?

Ed Bastian: One thing we spent time on at the Consumer Electronics Show was talking about how the experience is evolving. I've personally longed to figure out how to tap in and create value from the fact that you have your customers seated for an average of about three hours. They're kind of bored, all facing in the same direction, seat-belted in, can't go anywhere. If we can't figure out how to create value for them — we're pretty lousy. That was the genesis behind providing free fast Wi-Fi connectivity, because that was the access point that could not be tapped into so that customers could then be connected on their journey. We all had Wi-Fi for a number of years, but it was a pay model. None of the airlines had sufficient capacity or bandwidth to accommodate more than about 5% of customers. We broke that mold. As a result, entertainment partnerships, sponsorships — T-Mobile, Paramount, American Express. We just launched with Uber a premium experience. YouTube TV now is coming to our planes exclusively. As customers, whether through the experience on the ground with our new lounges from LaGuardia to LA to Detroit, into the cabin experience, through to final destination and beyond — it's being seen through the eyes of a connected experience. It's immersive, very engaging, and attractive particularly to a younger cohort of travelers. My ambition here is not just to leave Delta as the number one airline. I want to be the number one airline for the next generation.

Jim: What's the one thing that Delta does that can't be copied?

Ed Bastian: The number one thing Delta does that's unique is that we have great people. Not to say other airlines don't have great people, but our team, our culture — the fact that our people stand behind what we're trying to deliver to our customers is the only thing in our industry that can't be replicated. Everyone can copy your technology, copy the planes, fly to the same destinations. The only thing they cannot copy is the actual culture of the enterprise. Mr. Woolman said take good care of your people first. I spend the majority of my time with my own people. I tell folks all the time: I think I've got a pretty easy day. I can't fly the planes. I don't know how to fix the planes. I have a hard enough time getting through airports and using our technology on the app sometimes. But I know how to care for people. And listening to them, getting them the tools they need, the technologies they need, the support they need, enables them to do a great job taking care of our customers.

Jim: On that note — you lead a hundred thousand people. How do you keep culture from becoming a buzzword?

Ed Bastian: I could not be more adamant that culture is the absolute must do. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Today, I started my day in Atlanta at 8 o'clock this morning with a group of 750 Delta frontline employees — spent an hour and a half talking about the business. And it's not just me, it's our leadership team that follows me through a day-and-a-half session about all the things that make Delta special. We bring people across all different work groups, all different areas of the world. We do it 15 times a year, every year, and we've been doing it for 19 years. I've led each one of them. We had a big centennial bash this past weekend — took out the Mercedes-Benz Stadium here in Atlanta, 40,000 people and their families for a full day of concerts and fun. When you think about culture building, it's a full-contact sport — whether in large format or in individual opportunities to see people in the cockpit or in the workplace. The easy thing is the strategy. Culture is hard because it's every single day. If you're not willing to do it every day, you're not going to have the brand and the company that you want, particularly in a service industry.

Jim: What's it like to run a major airline?

Ed Bastian: We operate 5,000 flights a day, every day, all over the world. It's not just 24/7 — it's like 46/7 because of the time zones. There's never a time when your business is not in active motion doing challenging things. The thing about running an airline is that you've got so many constituents — 100,000 employees, 200 million customers, a very public-facing enterprise. Constituent management and stakeholder management has become increasingly difficult. The pace of change has quickened because of social media. Everyone is constantly on send and expecting response. You have to be comfortable with things going around you and knowing the value drivers, knowing where your focus needs to be, and not getting distracted because it's really easy to get distracted by shiny objects.

Jim: I was asked about AI — is that friend or foe?

Ed Bastian: I think of AI more as augmented intelligence rather than artificial intelligence. Our industry has had a lot of artificial intelligence over time — we need some real intelligence. Augmenting the human and ensuring the human is still at the centerpiece of all technology. I'm amazed by companies that say AI is going to allow us to save 4,000 jobs. Are you kidding me? This is going to enable your people — your most important asset — to do their job even better. It's not going to replace their jobs. It's going to let them have bigger impact, grow faster, be more efficient and profitable. So many companies talk about all the tasks that are going to be eliminated and all the savings and fewer people — playing to Wall Street rather than to your most important constituent, which is your employee.

Jim: What are the three or four metrics that you always first check?

Ed Bastian: One of the first things I see when I wake up is the reliability — ensuring we've got a 90%-plus on-time arrival rate. That gives me a sense that the systems are working. I always watch the cash. One of the first things I see each morning is our cash report from the day before. Coming from a company that went through bankruptcy 20 years ago, I've never lost that focus on cash. Another thing that allows me to stay grounded — people find it's easy to reach me. I have one cell phone and one email. I insist upon seeing everything that comes to me. Thousands of emails a day, thousands of texts. I want a customer having a problem to be able to reach out to the CEO. I want an employee having an issue to reach me. It's like playing point guard — I can see everything happening and dish it out to the people in position to make things happen. It enables me to always know what's actually going on in my business — not filtered information. Good news travels fast and bad news travels very slowly, if at all. I always want a heartbeat, a pulse. I've built this connectedness over the years and now I'm very comfortable with it.

Jim: You've managed through COVID and pilot shortages and supply chain chaos. When did you personally doubt the system the most?

Ed Bastian: I never doubted — I struggled, but I never doubted, because I knew the importance of our mission: we would have to figure it out. The first couple months of COVID were the darkest, by far. You're starting to see people die, people that you know die. I lost my mom early to COVID, completely unexpectedly. Those things put you into a panic mode. But then you sit back and you realize the important mission you have and the importance to stay collected, because you've got to get through this in a way that others are going to follow you. It was not just a burden — it was a blessing to have that opportunity to lead. One of the leadership lessons is that it's important to be transparent and authentic. Let people know that you're not Superman. When you're going through a struggle and you're walking together and leaning on people and asking for help and counsel, it's amazing what you can find. People trust you because they can relate to somebody that's not the all-knowing, all-seeing. Vulnerability actually creates trust.

Delta's Vision for the Future

Jim: Talk about the integrated travel experience — Joby, Wheels Up, what you see in the near and distant future.

Ed Bastian: I love the fact that we're sitting at the epicenter of travel from a larger context — not just in the air, it's on the ground. We're exclusive partners with Uber. The largest source of trips for them is to and from airports. Wheels Up is on one end of premium — and when we eventually bring Wheels Up onto our platform, price points come way down because Delta has 25 million members versus Wheels Up's 10,000. When you open that aperture, you create affordability for private aviation that hasn't existed before. Joby is on the other end — getting people from home into our sky club onto the seat of our airplane, cutting through traffic. The first flights Joby flies are going to be into some of our major metropolitan areas. Taking our customer from essentially their home, landing them on top of a Delta One Sky Lounge at JFK or LAX, and whisking them onto their Delta One seat going to Europe. Whether it's in mobility, or the future of flight with Jet Zero and the blended wing, there's a lot happening. Ed, what's the frontier technology that genuinely excites you?

Ed Bastian: Two things in the AI space. One: pilots. We have 15,000 pilots on our roster and 5,000 flights a day. That means a lot of pilots sitting on reserve or on deadhead flights — a lot of wasted time. If we could find ways to drive better solutions for our pilots to make them more available, easier to meet their schedule needs together with our schedule needs through better technology — our pilots would jump on that. They don't like the fact that they're sitting on reserve or on a deadhead flight. Getting your entire resource base better utilized — not to work them harder but smarter — is a win for them and for us. Two: maintenance. How do you gain the understanding of what maintenance technicians know needs to happen on a plane and put the right amount of medicine into our plane — more predictive, more anticipatory — rather than having standardized years-long checklists? Technology will unlock that. It'll allow us to use resources at better opportunities, be more predictive, and eliminate a lot of the work we do now that we don't find a lot of value for. But we can, through evidence and technology, bring the FAA with us on a journey to show them how to realign work patterns.

Jim: Top three on your wishlist of unsolved pain points for entrepreneurs:

Ed Bastian: How do you improve the overall efficiency of operations given the tremendous number of resources dedicated to getting a flight off the ground — reserved pilots sitting on the ground in case one gets sick, or schedule changes causing a plane not to be where you thought it was six weeks out. Any way we can reduce the redundancies embedded into the operation while enhancing safety and reliability is a huge opportunity. Second, the maintenance optimization I mentioned. Third — send it to ed.bastian@delta.com. That's my email, the only one I have. Send it to me and I'll get you in touch with somebody, I promise.

Jim: Could you talk about your Q3 results?

Ed Bastian: We reported a profit of $1.5 billion. That's going to represent 60% of overall industry profits for the quarter — one airline with 20% market share yet 60% of the profits. We also generate significant free cash flow. I believe Delta can have a fortress balance sheet that's investible — get our debt paid down to close to zero, effectively one times EBITDAR. Then think about what you can do with that cash. Give our company the chance to play offense, not defense, to be opportunistic when challenges come. Because they will — whether it's geopolitical, fuel risk, a health risk. That's the next frontier of how we grow our enterprise value.

Jim: Unlike most of the airline industry, which lives in quarters, you seem to think in decades. What are some of the bets you are making now that Wall Street doesn't yet understand?

Ed Bastian: The growth of international flight and international opportunity. Two thirds of our revenue is domestic sourced, one third is international. The domestic landscape is highly congested — not a lot of growth to be found. Only one in five people in the world have ever stepped foot on an airplane. That tells you where you need to go. Delta doesn't fly direct to India. We don't fly to the Middle East. The challenge back to us is how do you do that affordably, make it accessible, make it sustainable. We're building partnerships and relationships in India, Saudi Arabia, and other places. Whether it's Mr. Woolman with his crop duster 100 years ago, not being able to envision where we are today — we shouldn't be unencumbered when we think about the vision for the future.

Jim: Who do you watch most closely from an emerging competitive landscape?

Ed Bastian: I watch Amazon pretty carefully. It's not necessarily what they do specifically, it's the how — the boldness, the fearlessness, the understanding of the advantage they create. I look at a company like Disney — still an amazing consumer brand that people love. I dare anyone to mention the word Disney to a kid and not evoke a big smile. I want Delta — say "Delta trip" — and people to just smile. That's a powerful brand. It all comes back to the experience. Whether it's through our people's service on planes, or through technology partnerships, that's what matters.

Jim: For entrepreneurs on the line who have technology that could help Delta — what advice would you give them for bringing that technology to arguably one of the toughest organizations and industries?

Ed Bastian: We have our own venture group called the Hangar, alongside Georgia Tech, which has been a way for startup technologists to get a foothold and access to smart, affordable talent and the ability to prove it here in Atlanta. For anyone looking for ways to bring technology — I don't need great ideas. I need great solutions. Send it to ed.bastian@delta.com. And I'll get you in touch with somebody, I promise.

Jim: The next 10 years — how do you view it?

Ed Bastian: Our industry is going through a really disruptive period. The majority of airlines in the US are struggling — keenly focused on their business model driving a commodity difference and a lower price point. We've raised the ceiling of possibility within the airline space. Customers have drifted higher because people see it's not just a premium experience, it's a premium experience that's also a great value. The airlines that don't have an experience that people attach to other than just getting from point A to point B safely — there's not a lot of people left in that quadrant. So the next several years are going to be disruptive. The opportunity is in international expansion and growth that we can take a lead on. And this is a time where there's a sense of urgency for us to get our organization in a really good place, because there will be something happening.

Jim: Who does Ed Bastian listen to?

Ed Bastian: I listen to my team. I think it's important when there's a lot of change coming, and the pace of change is accelerating, that you stay close. I'm willing to be told I'm going too fast or too slow, and how to course correct if necessary. I've got a couple of close friends from all different walks — not necessarily in the business. A couple of church pastors that keep me grounded, keep my head in the game, remind me that current success doesn't really mean anything. It's how you deploy it that matters. And I'll tell you — my kids. They know me better than anybody and they're willing to tell me and laugh at me and laugh with me. I draw sources of information from all sorts of places. I'm a huge believer in mentorship — Frank Blake, Richard Anderson, Jerry Grinstein, Ambassador Andy Young here in Atlanta. Men who have poured so much time into me, and I continue to talk to all of them. And there's a responsibility to get back — mentoring the next generation accordingly.