Despite navigating crises such as 9/11, bankruptcy, and the COVID pandemic, Delta CEO Ed Bastian's premium playbook transformed the company into America's most profitable airline.
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00:00Ed Bastian stood on stage and put on a show for an hour and a half in this gigantic otherworldly
00:06ball called Sphere in Las Vegas. Tom Brady appeared in a vanilla ice cream colored suit.
00:12Viola Davis shows up and gives this very emotional speech about the culture of Delta.
00:16Then Lenny Kravitz came on and gave a concert. It was just an incredible spectacle.
00:21Delta has really emerged as the premier airline in terms of profitability,
00:25in terms of customer service, in terms of being on time. The whole strategy was,
00:30we're going to charge more for our service. We're going to differentiate ourselves and
00:34customers are willing to pay more, which was a revelation in the business because
00:39for many years, every airline wanted to be the lowest cost. And they said, that's not the way
00:44to win in this business. The way to win in this business is number one, have the best on-time
00:48service because that gets business customers. And then they gradually got better with their
00:53customer service and that enabled them to then divide the plane into more classes than anybody
00:58else. I had spent some time with Bastian in the past, and this goes to show what you have to do
01:03as a reporter, in my opinion. I saw that he was appearing to receive a reward at Columbia Business
01:09School. I went and I was the only reporter in the audience. You have to really strike up a
01:15good rapport with whoever you're covering and you want to develop a level of trust with them.
01:20Doing these kinds of stories, you're always looking for an interesting, unusual corporate
01:24strategy that's worked. And what was so interesting about this story was just the way that they stuck
01:29with this premium strategy for 15 years. And that even though it took a very, very long time,
01:35as long as it's unwavering, you believe in it, you're willing to dedicate all resources and a
01:40big personality like Ed Bastian. They were convinced from the beginning and their competitors
01:45went the other way and are now going Delta's way.