Delta Air Lines’ Own CEO Often Doesn’t Fly In Premium Cabins: Here’s Why

The key to Delta Air Lines’ success in recent years has been the premium brand it has built. The carrier’s identity today centers around Delta One Suites, glass doors, and a wine list created by master sommeliers that includes far too many bottles to count. The man behind that strategy, for the most part, is Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian. However, he is not sitting behind those doors as you might expect. Rather, he is often in the Main Cabin or perhaps Comfort+, where he walks the aisles and chats with flight attendants, all while quietly trying to examine what pieces of the experience are actually more valuable to customers. It is not a marketing stunt by any stretch of the imagination, but rather a part of Ed Bastian’s recurrent and extremely visible leadership philosophy, which encourages Delta leaders to listen more than they talk and make decisions anchored in what frontline employees and everyday travelers actually live through on a Tuesday afternoon flight to Atlanta.