Ed Bastian 0:00 

The accolades are nice, but it's totally irrelevant. It's really what you do today and tomorrow that matters, and you got to go out and prove it and do it better every single day.

David Novak 0:17 

Ever catch yourself coasting after a big win? If so you do not want to miss today's episode. Welcome to how leaders lead. I'm David Novak, and every week I have conversations with the very best leaders in the world to help you become the best leader that you can be. My guest today is Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Airlines. They've earned a reputation as the most awarded airline in the United States, and they've done it while serving more than 200 billion customers every single year. Ed himself has gotten some acclaim recently, having just been named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people, right alongside Mark Zuckerberg and Snoop Dogg, no less. But here's what I love about it, the accolades really don't mean that much to him. In a super competitive industry like the airline business, you can't rest on that reputation. You've got to prove it again and again every single day, and that's how Ed goes to work every single day, and that mentality to never stop improving is something you got to have if you want to stay sharp and stay ahead. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours. Ed Bastian, you know,

when I was doing my research, I learned that you didn't get on a plane until you were 25 years old. Now you're running one of the world's biggest airlines, that's quite the journey. Yet. What do you remember about that very first flight? I got to ask you that I do remember.

Ed Bastian 1:55 

I think everyone probably remembers their first first flight as a business trip from La Guardia to Chicago, O'Hare. I was, I was working, I was working for Price Waterhouse at the time, and my account was J Walter Thompson, one of the big ad agencies. Don't remember a whole lot about it, other than I was probably apprehensive and excited at the same time, and going on your first trip as a business individual, and I think I was going by myself too, so it was pretty cool.

David Novak 2:25 

Yeah, I know what that's like, because I didn't go on a plane until I was out of college, too. So that's really funny, you know? And here you are full circle. And you know, I recently you brought 1000s of Delta employees together at the sphere in Las Vegas to celebrate your 100th anniversary. And what's something about that event, Ed, that reinforces how you lead the company?

Ed Bastian 2:50 

Well, we were honored to be able to do one of the opening keynotes for the Consumer Electronics Show. And as you know, it's the biggest show Vegas puts on all year long. And a couple 100,000 people, and I think we had about 15,000 people in attendance at the sphere. I never been to a show at the sphere until I saw my own or participate in my own. So that, in itself, was probably a story. But we we were celebrating the future of flight the first 100 years, first US airline to get to 100 which is pretty crazy, given how turbulent our industry tends to be, but importantly, where we're going next. One of the things that we touched on is we take air travel as a given. Here in the United States, it's ubiquitous. You can jump on a plane almost anywhere you want to go at any time of day. However, only one in five people in the world have ever even been on an airplane. So that tells you about where our future is. It's not a mature industry by any means. It's a it's about going global. It's about making travel, air travel, more accessible, more affordable, more sustainable, and going to parts of the world where we need to bring the Delta love and magic.

David Novak 4:01 

And you know, Ed, you're a great communicator, and I know you view it as a very important thing in leadership. You know, what do you think the role of the leader is to really communicate?

Ed Bastian 4:12 

I think one of the most important things we do, and running, running these companies, is that we cast vision, and we all have planning departments, and we all set strategy, and we have a probably team of people that works on that with us. But I think only the CEO can think it has the as the responsibility, and also the ability to think further out. I try myself, to try to stay at least five years ahead of my team of the company, maybe 10 years, you know, thinking about where we can go and stretching the possibility so that, you know, people throughout the organization have a pretty good idea where we want to go and be able to pivot when we need to pivot soon enough and get get far enough out so that we're not necessarily tied in. To those decisions, but strategically, have a pretty good mindset, and that's where communication comes in, because you have to be doing it over and over and over. Delta, we have 100,000 employees, and I speak all the time, and I'm in front of them, and so many different formats, but you got to be consistent. You got to be inspiring in terms of what that vision lays out because you got people given their very best to make sure it comes comes into fruition. And I, you know, my years of CEO, I think that's one of the things I've learned. I didn't really fully appreciate it before I became a CEO. But, you know, no one can do it, but the CEO at that level.

David Novak 5:35 

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you also have the day to day grind of competition. You know, recently, in one article, I saw this headline where said, Delta Airlines lures Southwest Airline flyers with with the status offer. You know, how do you how do you think about competition, and how do you build competitive urgency into your organization? Well,

Ed Bastian 6:00 

we are, we are fiercely competitive industry. You know, unlike maybe your old, your old company where you put up a store and you had that street corner, they couldn't take it away from you, our factories fly. So when we see something that works, guess what? The rest of the industry takes their factories and they fly and try to sit right on top of us, because you imagine a street corner with kind of eight corners to it, you know, different different restaurants trying to serve different things. And so the dynamics of that environment and the ability for consumers to check online, you know, pricing, you know, real time, all the time, where they want to go. It's right in front of them. There's a whole industry of online travel agencies and expedias and price lines that are geared to give consumers their very best value out of trying to compete one against the next. We're born of that. We've gotten a lot better a lot as retailers and as merchandisers over time, but we're born for competition, and I love it, because it's what makes us great. I

David Novak 7:04 

can't wait to hear more about how you're leading Delta, but first I want to take you back. You know, what's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today?

Ed Bastian 7:13 

Well, to know my childhood knows I was one of nine kids growing up in a small town, Poughkeepsie, New York, and I was the oldest of the nine. And my dad was a dentist. He had his practice right in our house. My mom worked for him, and my grandmother lived with us. And it wasn't that big a house. I think we had, we had one and a half bathrooms in the house. So you can, you can, you can imagine the, you know, today, my tell of my kids that story, they think I grew up in the in, you know, kind of the medieval age or something like that. How in the world did you do but you know, honestly, and I know you can relate to us. You know, things seemed easier, things seemed simpler. I think we were all maybe a little happier, even to live life together. But what I learned is I had, I had to get out for a lot of reasons, but once, I wanted to make sure I set a good example for my younger siblings, in which my parents emphasized on me repeatedly that we had to set the pace and and we did. And so you learn a lot about teamwork. You learn a lot about working, collaborating. You learn a lot about, you know, understanding, you know, in a tight knit community, the importance one can have of being, being a, being a leader. Well,

David Novak 8:26 

you know, with nine kids and one and a half bathrooms, you probably had to learn a little bit about how to manage chaos as well. Did that? Did you go? Oh,

Ed Bastian 8:34 

yeah, my sisters ran the bathroom. So we had a we had to negotiate for our two minute slots.

David Novak 8:41 

You know, you started your career as an accountant at at Price Waterhouse. And as I understand it, you helped uncover, at one point in your career, $50 million in fraud. You got to tell us that story.

Ed Bastian 8:52 

Yeah, so this is back in, gosh, I don't know, the early 80s, and you know, $50 million it's a lot of money, but it was a, it was a whole lot of money back then, and that was a front page Wall Street Journal, journal article for years. And I was working on this, this ad agency which I mentioned, J Walter Thompson, and I stumbled upon something that just didn't make sense to me in terms of how the company was was reconciling its books, and it had this manual reconciliation of one account to the next that went on for, gosh, it must have been like 25 or 30 manual pages, and went on for years. It just kept adding and adding and adding to the point where no one had a clue as to what it was. And so, you know, people just kind of accept, well, if it's good enough last year, it's pretty consistent with it just kind of keep the thing rolling. And I, I dug in and made it because it was such a big number, my pursuit to try to figure out what exactly was this, this difference. And as it turned out, it was, it was it was all fraudulent. They were covering up the fact that they weren't able to cover a certain, certain advertising shut. Was a show that they were producing that was being used on barter. And there was a long, long way of saying, I dug in so much that the company wound up acknowledging and figuring out that it was fraud, and there was an SEC investigation, and people went to jail. And, gosh, I was, like, 24 years old at the time, and you know, I was, I was scared out of my mind. But, you know, I realized that you got to trust your instincts, and you got to, you got to curiosity play such an important role in leadership and in life and trying to figure things out. And until you can, don't let it go. Be tenacious. Yeah,

David Novak 10:37 

24 years old, and take on a problem like that that had to, you know, take you up the scale in a hurry. And you know, something that we have in common that I didn't know was that we both had 10 years at PepsiCo and working with Frito Lay what was the biggest leadership lesson you picked up in your seven years you spent with that great company.

Ed Bastian 10:57 

I loved, loved my time at PepsiCo. I got out of school and went right to right to work, went to St Bonaventure University in upstate New York, and went right to Price Waterhouse. I didn't have any any real graduate learning, and became an accountant with them. But I knew I didn't want to do that for forever, and I needed to find a way to get a broader business degree. But I didn't want to stop working because I didn't want to pay for it. So the next best thing is get hired by PepsiCo, and you're surrounded by amazing leaders. I know you spent time with Enrico. I spent a lot of time with Roger and Steve reineman, and I worked on the international side of the business. So we could, we'd get on the Chester Cheeto plane, out of out of Plano, and fly around the world, and, you know, you'd be with 678, people for a week at a time, and they bring you back home, and you just sit at the hands of some of the real business giants. I learned a lot about sales. I learned about a lot about such an up, you know, the direct to store business up and down the street. You know, you're out on the street corner and you're you're talking to real people about, you know, what you have to do to be successful in life and all different parts of the world. I was there for seven years. I probably got two or 3x that in terms of valuable expertise, to the point when delta called and offered me an opportunity to come work and be my own leader in the finance organization at Delta. I felt truly, truly prepared for it, and

David Novak 12:25 

you became the chief financial officer of delta in 2005 and as I understand it, not long after the the airline had to file for bankruptcy. Now how did that season make you a better leader. Well,

Ed Bastian 12:42 

I, I left the company. I joined originally 98 and left the company because it was, it was in the aftermath of 911 and the industry was just hurting, and travel was changed, and international was different. And I, I saw the company making a lot of decisions that were inconsistent with the values that I knew it held. You know, pay cuts and job losses and customer cutback air travel was really hard talk about as a lost decade from 2000 to 2010 and anyone out there, out there as a road warrior back, you know, during that period, can can commiserate with that. And I wound up leaving the company because I wasn't able to get some of my my concerns properly addressed. And a few months after I left, the CEO came running back after me and said, you know, what do we need to do to get you to come back? And I told them several things, one of which was unusual is that this company needed to file for bankruptcy and kind of get a reset and start over again. And I talked the CEO into agreeing to do that if I came back. It wasn't a matter if we were going to file bankruptcy. It was just when, and we wanted to make sure we went into bankruptcy with a real plan, rather than stumbling into it and actually getting broken up. You know, our industry, David CEO, at the time, when I was in the courtroom filing it, 180 airlines had filed for bankruptcy at that point in time. You think about all the disruption in our industry, and at that time, only four had ever made it out. So he wished me well and said, I hope to see you on the other side. And we did and and you think about all the airlines from the past, from Pan Am to Dwa to Eastern to Braniff to Hughes, and you go on and on, and people express on and on and on, yet, delta is the airline that made it to 100 Yeah.

David Novak 14:24 

What did you do as a leader during that period that got that made that happen? Because, you know, like you said, not everybody did it. I mean, what did you learn from that experience? We

Ed Bastian 14:33 

learned to to kind of go back to our roots, to go back to our people. Is this, you know, the this is a tough business, but the differentiation about delta is about service that our people provide. We all fly the same planes. We all have a lot of the same airports. We go to the same destinations. The only thing about our service, our brand, that is truly distinctive cannot be replicated, is the quality of the service of our people and the relationship. Have with our people and the service, the heart that they, that they deploy and travel, is hard, and our people do amazing things, not just to have the most reliable service, but to have the most distinctive and that's why I felt our people were being let down. And so we we got that heart and soul back, and we started a program back then, almost 20 years ago to this day, that I continue today, where I get 678, 100 of our frontline employees from all over the world together, and we do it 15 different times a year, and we spend a couple days with them, talking about the business, kind of networking, learning, inspiring, motivating, casting that vision that vision that we talked about, and having fun and celebrating at the same time. But that that's, that's what the heart of teamwork is, is getting people together and and really appreciating the the and sharing the magic that we get to create a Delta

David Novak 15:55 

well, and then, you know, just two years later, you get you get them out, you get out of bankruptcy, you get promoted the president. You know, so many times when you're a functional leader in finance, you get pigeon holed as this numbers guy. You know, how did you demonstrate that you were more than just a numbers guy? And you knew what it really took to run the business day to day? Well, one of

Ed Bastian 16:17 

the things about the airlines is that they are, as I said earlier, really dynamic animals. You know, you got to be on top of your numbers to be able to make decisions. Because those you know, whether it's every 5000 flights a day that we have and every condition and things are moving around, fuel prices are moving around, heavy, heavy labor intensity, you know, high cost utilization. So you really have to understand where, where your levers are to drive to drive success. You need to understand your pricing. You need to understand where the where the value proposition sits. You need to understand where your capital is going to go. And so having that analytical depth, which I think finance teaches, it as great a discipline as there is, is something that I think is key to being a successful leader in in the airline space. Historically, had come through labor. It had come with lawyers, and now, if you look at the most successful airlines in the world, many of us, many of us have have kind of financial backgrounds and analytical skills. And you know, used to be an industry with people with huge egos and wanting to, want to go conquer the globe, real swashbuckling heroes. Now we tend to be business people with we wear suits and we have finance degrees because that's what it takes to succeed in this, in this industry.

David Novak 17:35 

But still, you had to get this customer orientation. When did you get that in your bones? I

Ed Bastian 17:39 

learned I had a lot of people taught me. I learned that at PepsiCo. You know, seven, eight years I was, I was an audit partner at Pricewaterhouse. I had a lot of big accounts. I was out serving them and leading them. I had a lot of people here delta that taught me about that prior, prior mentors and CEOs here that I learned from and and what, what, what they taught me is it's all about people, about service. If you can get your people pulling in the same direction, and you get them behind you, they'll do amazing things for you, and you take good care of them. You treat them well, you pay them great and you know that they know you always have their back. You know they can do magic. I think too many of our leaders, over time, feel like they have to give too much direction, too much micromanaging, too much taking away their ability to create their own leadership mantras and and that's where I think you get in trouble.

Koula Callahan 18:32 

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David Novak 19:29 

When did you first start to think that you could become the CEO? Ed,

Ed Bastian 19:33 

oh, I'm still learning. 10 years later, I'd say it was about that time, about 20 years ago, I was working hard. We were in bankruptcy. I took a week off my family. We went on a vacation someplace, and I came back in town, and there was a big, big fuss going on in the local community. Well, the fellow was the CEO, Jerry grinstein. That name rings a bell was my boss, and he. Had given an interview to the local land a newspaper, and they were because Jerry had said, when he left and retired from Delta, you know, after the bankruptcy, he was going to pick, try to pick someone from within the company. And they were giving a couple names, and he's in one of the names he highlighted was me to be, to be his successor. He never said that once in his life to me, once in his life, and I come back, and I've got all the people in the company looking at me like, What are you doing to kiss up, or, How did you how did you garner his favor? So I went in to see him. I said, Jerry, do you have something to tell me? And and I had this article in hand. They said, Well, he said, You should be the CEO, and you can be the CEO. And question is, do you want to be the CEO? And I said, Well, I'm not sure. I had to think about that. And I came back to him at some point, said, Yeah, I would really like to have that honor someday. And and as a result, eventually it came about.

David Novak 20:49 

And you did become the ninth CEO for Delta, and that was in May of 2016 you know, I can tell when you talk about people. You know, culture has to be really important to you. And you know, as as a CEO, what are you trying to bring the culture today that maybe wasn't there a few years ago? Because you know, your culture can't evolve. Is there? Is there some behavior that you think is going to be necessary for you to be better in the future?

Ed Bastian 21:18 

You know, culture is something that you know people sometimes think it's, it's just, it's an intangible. It's out there. It's the it's the end product of a lot of things that you do. I think it's something you have to manage. I think it's something that can be formed and can be cultivated and can be needs to be invested in, or else you can lose it. And you know, as the word says it's cult. You know, part of it is there's there has to be a dedication to something. There has to be a consistent application of it. There has to be a pouring of investment into it. For us, it is, it is our people. And over, I'd say the last 10 years, my duration here at Delta, the main thing that we've invested in its differentiation as a higher end airline, as a higher premium airline, as a more international we've 14 years running, been named the number one business airline by business travel news for corporate America. All those things are things that we set out 20 years ago to create, and we've been investing in them and the reliability of the product and the service. The airline business is tough, and the most important thing you can do as an airline leader is to invest in the quality and the reliability of your product, in minimizing your cancelations, making sure your on time arrival rates are the best in the best in business, and over time, your own employees realize you're doing this and giving them then the platform to succeed, giving them the workplace. Because our flight attendants, we have 25,000 flight attendants, they're awesome at hospitality. The one thing I know they're they're awful at is, is apologizing, because they get, they get more upset than anyone that our customers do if we're not on time if we're not meeting our commitments to the brand promise, and so serving them by making sure they have the very best airline reliability and the very best tools and technologies to deliver, then we set them free to go deliver and put an exclamation point on Service with a smile that's different, and over time, that's then yielded premium quality service that's that's delivering a higher quality today. Delta generates about 20% more per ticket for per flight, seat, per seat, than our competition does, and that's because people are valuing the quality of that brand. And is

David Novak 23:37 

there anything going forward that you're trying to do differently and with the culture, or you just it's more of the same old, same old.

Ed Bastian 23:43 

There was a big pivot during COVID. We we hired, we had a lot of people voluntarily retire, and we had to grow once, once travel came back. So we've got 40,000 new team members just over the last several years, and so getting them into the culture is something we've been been spending a lot of time in. But the next step in our journey is growing our international business, and we do that with partners. We just did the flying ourselves. So we're investors. We own stakes in Air France and KLM and Virgin Atlantic and Korean Air and aero Mexico and the TAM and several others, so that we continue to grow the larger ecosystem and getting our people comfortable to travel on an international basis, because international travel is very different than domestic travel, and that's where the value creation is going to come

David Novak 24:30 

over time. Ed, one of the things that I've heard you talk about one quality that you look for in people you hire, and you talk about this heart of service. Say more

Ed Bastian 24:40 

well, you know, when we interview people, I appreciate there's a lot of technical aspects to this job. We can teach you, teach you how to be a pilot. We can teach you how to how to fix a plane. We can teach you how to print a boarding pass, whatever it is. The one thing you can't teach is a heart either you. You have a heart of service or you don't. And what I like love to do when I interview people, and we talk to people coming into the business, is understand how they've demonstrated that in their past, their past careers. So I believe you can have, you know the high, the highest level of proficiency and technical depth, but it's your service that that will set you apart. You know, your heart for service. That's the thing that that I think just kind of feeds that culture, is putting, putting that servant leadership right into the middle of the of the requirements set you

David Novak 25:33 

obviously have this great appreciation for for people and you recognize them. How do you think about recognition on a day to day basis, how much of part of that is the way you you lead?

Ed Bastian 25:44 

Oh, I spent a lot of time with my people, and they take, I take lots of selfies. I take, you know, I'm in the whenever you don't want to be in an airplane with me, because, you know, our customers and employees will know who I am. And I spend time just kind of roaming the roaming the plane and in the galley and in the cockpit and spending time with people just trying to understand them better, and what we can continue to do to take good care of them over time. I do it. I travel almost every day, and my plane somewhere and doing something in community, you'd be surprised, Dave, even with 100,000 employees, more often than not, I've already met the individual you know before, and and they'll, they'll say, hey, I want to show you something. It'll be a picture I took with them 12 years ago. Or they're marked by the fact that they get a chance to spend some personal time with the CEO. And, you know, some people kind of show me we've taken eight pictures together, and they want to show you all the pictures. What it tells me is that how important these roles are, you know that they may never get a chance. In fact, a lot of people say, you know, I've never met the the CEO of my company before, and and been here 30 years, and it's great to great to finally meet you or meet whoever that individual is. They'll tell people. And so that impression that you make every single time is critical. It's important you know their form and opinion on you. That's their that's their moment of choice, and no matter what you Your reputation is, they'll get chance to make their own decision about you. One of the things that my predecessor told me when I took the job David, was that I was too public. I needed to close my close myself a bit off. I needed to get a private email. I needed to get a private phone and text so that people can't reach me because I only have one email and one cell phone and walk around with any kind of hidden identity. And I said, thank you very much by never, I never deployed that his recommendation, because I want people to be able to reach me. And I get hundreds, if not 1000s of emails a day, and I have no they all go to the same device. They all go to me, my I've got a team that sits behind me that can help, helps me take care of getting people where they need to go. And, you know, somebody needs help with something, I tell them, just, just email me. And it's really easy to find what that has done is it's allowed it's not just customers, it's employees, it's people in the community to feel that, you know, there's someone that that we they could talk to at any point in time and get a response that that they people really do care about, about their their their relationship with you, and that that Identity of accessibility is something that people are actually surprised that they can get that level of relationship. And sometimes it'll be on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday night, and somebody will, they'll get a response back from me in maybe two minutes, because I don't like to see the stuff accumulate either. And they say this, you have, you have an amazing AI agent or a robot or somebody. And I'll say, no, no, it's me. It's not a board here, and I'm just trying to knock things out. But that that builds the identity with people that you're very involved. And when I think about my role with so many things going on, I can be pretty peaceful about it all, because I don't have to go hunting around, seeing what's going on. People tell me, you know, 24/7, what's happening. And I'll find out many times before our leaders will find out what's going on. Because I get, I get it on my phone blows up first thing for the people being impacted. So it's, it's an interesting way to use use technology to keep yourself engaged and in the game. And

David Novak 29:16 

you know, you've been recognized yourself as well many times, and you always accept it on behalf of the team, which I like that. And you were recently announced as one of Time magazine's most influential people of 2025 and as a part of the announcement, you know our friend Ken Chenault did a write up of you, and he said, while Ed is the epitome of the service leader, make no mistake, he is a tough minded business executive. Tell me a story. Ed, when you you, you demonstrated that tough minded characteristic.

Ed Bastian 29:49 

Oh, I'll tell you a funny story about Ken. How's that? So Ken? Ken's a dear friend for as he is with you for many, many years. And American Express is our top partner. I. We that credit card that the American Express has, the Delta credit card, that's the top performing card American Express has by a factor of two of any other card in the entire Amex system. Fact, 10% of the worldwide billings go through on the Delta American Express credit card. So it's huge. They pay us. They'll pay us this year, about $8 billion for that credit card. That's how that's how big it is. The relationship. Well, back when Wes, I mentioned we were we were struggling, we were having to go through bankruptcy. I went to American Express because I needed to raise some money, and they had invested in it. Of course, the relationship much, much smaller back then, at that time, and I went to Ken. And I think Ken loaned us the last $500 million that we needed to do to put the business plan together to eventually emerge, because they had, they had a best at stake in Delta surviving as well about five years after that, after we had come out and repaid the loan and did everything we had, we had a big leadership meeting, and we invited Ken to come in and speak at the meeting. And he did a great job, as he always does. And after he got done, I got up and spoke, and I thank Ken and told him that, you know, he's amazing partner, great, great leader. But the thing I'll always remember about Ken is that $500 million that you loaned us Ken, and Ken saying, yeah, yeah, I put myself out there for you. He said, You charged us 14% for that money. I'm gonna make sure we get that 14% back for you for many, many times over. And you think about how we grown, our relationship, we certainly have so, you know, you don't. You know business is competition. It's good competition. You have fun with friends. And he laughed and and we all laugh, but yeah, I'll never forget, Ken charged me 14% as we were on our deathbed just a

David Novak 31:43 

few minutes ago. You you talked about the power of having this open email. Do you have a story of the best feedback you ever received from a customer that led to a good idea?

Ed Bastian 31:56 

Oh, I get I get feedback all the time. The best feedback I get, and I get it every single day is they catch our employees in action, doing, doing amazing, heroic work, and they'll, they'll, then they know they can reach me. So you know, there's, you can go on our website and fill out a form to give a compliment to an employee, or you can give them a card, or a kind of a attaboy type thing. But those that are really in the know realize, just to email me, and I'll personally thank thank the the individual, and there's so many, some of those people get credit through those, through those through those vehicles, but I'll hear stories about people's lives being changed by our people in terms of just their ability to make certain that, that, you know, whether somebody lost a really important possession on a plane, and a mechanic will, you know, three days later, have taken a seat apart, still trying to find this thing. And they'll, they'll recover something that was, they the employees, like a wedding ring, or something, you know, amazing value, or how we've, we've, we've created connections for people that have become lifelong friends. Or, I can't tell you how many marriages and wedding proposals and people that met on delta property or delta delta flights, you know, want to, you know, emanate it from that I get, I get lots of ideas, as you said, I mean, ideas about, you know how to board, what food to serve on the planes. And we're, I know you're in the business of restaurants. We've I think we're one of the largest restaurants in the world, world. We serve 200 million people a year on our in our little restaurant itself, and our lounges and and all the places. A lot of our business travelers are road warriors. They're on the road every week, and they're always telling me or ask me, why can't we board this way or that way? So I get a lot of great, great feedback.

David Novak 33:46 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Ed Bastian in just a moment. Now, as you heard Ed's got some great stories about Ken Chenault, the former chairman and CEO of American Express. Ken was kind enough to join me on a how leaders lead podcast where he shared some of my favorite insights about the importance of feedback for leaders,

Ken Chenault 34:07 

one of the things that I talk to founders about very directly is eliciting and receiving direct feedback. And so this concept that I used in management of constructive confrontation, do it respectfully, but at the end of the day, what you want with your people, and what you're going to get with me is I'm going to tell you how I feel, what my concerns are, what areas you need to develop. Let's talk about it, but then let's put a game plan together, because one of the things that's important that I really stress the founders or anyone that I'm mentoring, is we're all judged by our actions, and so take me through the outcomes behaviors that you engage in. Let's understand what the impacts are. Let's understand what the results are, because we all got to be outcome driven. And. But again, if we want to do something that's really lasting and meaningful, it's got to be motivated by values and principles.

David Novak 35:07 

So catch my entire conversation with Ken, Episode 68 here on how leaders lead. You know, you managed Delta through the one of the toughest times in the airline industry will ever face with COVID. But before we talk about that, you know, understand, a few weeks prior to COVID, your mother passed away. You know, when life happens like that, and you know, I know how tough that is myself, you know, and when you have so much responsibility at work, Ed, how do you manage that?

Ed Bastian 35:43 

That was tough. I think we all have our own COVID recollections as to as to the craziness that was going on. 2019 for Delta was our best year in our history. I think was the best year any airline had ever had. So we're at the highest of heights. And then when it hit in in February of that year, people started to figure out something was going wrong. My mother had somewhat, somewhat shockingly, mysteriously died, and she had, she had an infection, and she went in the hospital, and a couple of weeks later she was gone, and she had been in great health to that point, and my mom was my role model, and my dad died very, very young, and so she, she raised the nine kids, and she was something, someone that was always my rock. Then a week later, right after we buried her, you know, COVID, the COVID pandemic, was declared, and all of our revenue went away. All of our business, in fact, we, we not only had no revenues, we were negative revenues because people had deposits that we had a refund monies, you know, for trips. We had like, $6 billion on the books for trips that people were to be taking into the spring and summer, that they had put on deposit, and these people wanted their money back. I mean, so, you as a as a Christian man, I really thought I was, you know, kind of job in the Bible, a little bit, you know, kind of, I lost my mom, I lost my business. What's, what's going to come next? And so what I did, David, is I gave myself about a week to feel really sorry for myself. I mean, I was like, for a few days. I was just pretty, pretty depressed. I came through that week at the end of it. And I spent a lot of time and thought and prayer and other things, and I realized, boy, this, this isn't a burden. This is a blessing. I mean, in the 100 year history of Delta Airlines, there's never been a more important time to be the CEO of this company. Never. This will be the this will be the role that I'll make my life on my this be the career highlight of my life, saving this company and getting it through. It's a privilege. It wasn't a burden. It was a blessing. I had to tell you, I did that pep talk with myself every day, for a lot of days, just to remind myself of not just the responsibility but the opportunity that are born then the 10s of 1000s of people that were counting on the decisions we were taking. And I realized, boy, there's no other place I'd rather be and in that job at that time. And so, you know, I had a I had a moment I had to kind of dig into my own humanity and be vulnerable and realize when I got out the others, no, no, this is no, this is my time to stand up. And that's what my mom would have wanted me to do, and that's what that's what my my family needed, and that's my delta family, 100,000 strong, needed,

David Novak 38:27 

you know, speaking of step stepping up, Ed, you said this ambitious goal not to furlough a single employee during COVID. How'd you get the entire company to rally behind that and make it a reality? Because that that seems to me like one hell of a leadership task. Yeah,

Ed Bastian 38:44 

let's say I thought it would be impossible. Yeah, we did a lot of these video things back then. We had a video serves meta or Facebook back back then, I guess that's something that we use for internal trends. So fortunately, we had the communication vehicle, and I talk on the several times a week to 10s of 1000s of people, just for an hour a day, just letting them know what was going on, because no one knew what was happening. And people just needed to see you. They needed to look at your face. They needed to see how much, if you were comfortable, if you were confident, if you were worried, and it just vulnerability, I think was one of the key things we all learned during COVID, and that's where where a connection was born. And people can tell pretty quickly if you were being true and straight with them or not. And one day early on, I said I was, I was I was thinking that day that Boy, wouldn't it be amazing? Now all our revenue is gone. If we could get through this crisis without furloughing a single person, I basically said it out loud for the first time, and like 10s of 1000s of people are hearing me say this, and I'm having this, this kind of open ended conversation with myself. And I said, you know, it's probably impossible, but why not try? Let's see if there's any way to get this done. And I had a few things going for me. One. Thing we haven't talked about is how we reward our people. One of the things that delta is famous for we implemented 20 years ago is a profit sharing arrangement where 15% of the profits of our company go to our people and not management doesn't participate in that. That's just, that's just all frontline people. And the prior year, we just had the best year in our history. And we distributed on and we always distribute on balance. Distribute on Valentine's Day. We distributed $1.7 billion to our people on that Valentine's Day, just the month earlier. So I knew they had money. All right, I knew, I knew there was money. It was like two months worth of pay. And I knew a lot of people were, were nervous about being out in public and flying. And I knew people were a lot of people, whether it was their second job or people that could, that could, could take time off, and I knew they wanted to stay. They kept saying, What can we do for our company? And I said, if you want to make this a reality, we needed as many of you to take time off without pay for as long as you could, could afford to. We kept their benefits alive, and we gave them some travel privileges, and we had 50,000 people, half, more than half of the company, at the time, take up to a year or more off without pay. And we grew this high what people would consider to be a fixed cost base. We shrunk it down to maybe half its size, and then on top of that, we did a voluntary retirement arrangement for people that were willing to go at that point. And then we got down further, so we only make a third of our size within a few months. And that's that's our people are our biggest cost. It's not fuel, it's not the planes. It's people. It's a heavy, heavy people business. And our people did it for for each other. And as a result of that, you know, people were so proud of the fact that we didn't have to furlough, you know, every other airline the world furloughed 10s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people. We didn't, and we wanted to make that a real point of differentiation.

David Novak 41:58 

Yeah, I love how you light up when you talk about that, because you have that pride too. And you know, that's such an amazing accomplishment, and you worked your way through COVID very successfully. Can I tell you

Ed Bastian 42:10 

one other? Can I tell you one other really quick story in COVID? Absolutely. So the other thing I did was we blocked the middle seats on our planes, and we blocked them all through COVID. And of course, when no one flying, it's easy to block the Middle East. But when people started flying again, but they still weren't comfortable that COVID was over, we kept blocking the middle seats. We blocked the Middle East for up to two years, and our brand just took off like a rocket ship. Our brand was already on ascent and just took off like a rocket ship. And customers still thank me to this day say, Hey, I didn't want to have to travel. I needed to get to a little the bedside of a loved one, or I had to do something for work. Delta's the only airline that I fly, because you because all the other airlines started selling those middle seats you didn't sell either in first class or in the coach section of the airplane, playing the middle seats. And I always say, thank you very much. But the truth of that story is the reason we blocked those middle seats. I had made that decision because I knew our own people didn't want to work on a crowded plane anymore, and our customers wanted to sit on a crowded plane. So I really did it for our own people. So when you talk about putting people first and having that people centricity, and you're with COVID, we had to make these things up. You know, we didn't have a playbook for any of this stuff as it was going on, that brand still, still sits with us today, but our people know the real reason we did it was for them. You know,

David Novak 43:27 

you're obviously a big believer. If you do the right things, the right things happen, and they certainly have happened for you and and post COVID, the travel industry is booming right now, and you know, how are you taking advantage of this rebound period that you're obviously in? Because your results are pretty amazing. We've We've

Ed Bastian 43:49 

grown, we've expanded. All demographics are traveling. All you know, our younger people are traveling at levels never before seen, the Gen Z population actually has more wealth than any of the previous generational cohorts, and they're using it on travel. Baby Boomers, guys like ourselves, are outgoing. So many people were sit sitting home for a couple of years, wondering whether they were ever going to get out again, and watching life, you know, pass them by, and whether you're older or younger didn't matter. I think COVID was a marking period for them. So So we're now in a period of with tariffs and all the economic uncertainty and questions about a recession as a recession coming or not for our country. Yet, our people are here, traveling like crazy, and they're going internationally, they're going premium, they're going on all the higher end products that we have to offer. They're selling out our credit card business Express is growing double digits. I think, I think people are prioritizing where they where they spend their money. And they're really not buying things, but they're investing in themselves. And they're going to Turkey, and they're going. To Australia, and they're going to Riyadh, and, you know, all the places the world that they spent time and again, they're going younger, they're going older. And that's our business model, is to connect and and bring them to meet their life's life's dreams.

David Novak 45:15 

You know this, this GO, GO environment that you're in right now. You know, what do you see as your biggest Leadership Challenge?

Ed Bastian 45:22 

Well, I think it's continuing to to keep our people, you know, kind of focused on on every single day. You know, that driving that, that that great, that great, great example. You know, we've been on top of our industry for a lot of years. And I know all the other airlines are sick and tired about hearing about delta this and delta that, and you know, they just can't wait to take us down and and try to beat us. And which, which I love, because I'm a very competitive guy, but what I what I want our people to always know, is that the most important thing is the awards. The accolades are nice, but they don't there. It's totally irrelevant. It's really what you do today and tomorrow that matters, and you got to go out and prove it and do it better every single day. Keep climbing is our model. We've been using it for years, and every single day we can, we can make the world better. A number of years ago, my marketing team came to me, and you'd love this story, and they said, you know, keep climbing. We adopted that coming out of bankruptcy. And, you know, it was a great it was a great, honest statement about where we were. Weren't very good, but stay with us. We're going to get better. And sure enough, we've gotten better. And they wanted to come out with a new model, a bolder statement about, you know, not that we've arrived, but you know, there's a different experience you should expect on Delta, and I said, thank you very much, and threw them out and said, I'm never done for changing. It's honest, it's humble, it recognizes that we can always do better, and we want to get better, and as long as I'm here, we're never taking that model off. That's

David Novak 46:47 

another great example of being tough minded. That's a really good one right there. You know, speaking of keep climbing, you know, how are you sharpening your acts as a leader? I mean, what are you working on right now? So that you're, you become better and better. Well,

Ed Bastian 47:05 

I think for myself, personally, because I've been doing this for a while, you know, I try to make certain that I'm I continue to get fed, I continue to listen. I think listening is such an important part of leadership that's understated. You know, as leaders, we don't, you know, people look to us for direction or for vision or for guidance, and sometimes we can get almost too accustomed to giving direction and not spending enough time thinking and listening and taking in advice and being curious and kind of pushing the envelope a little bit differently. So I'm trying to do my best to kind of keep my my focus on, on what I can learn, what we can learn as a team from so many different people. You know, we're a very public facing business, making certain that we never, we never really, you know, stop learning. And Morgan, I've been working with guy, you know, well, Tom Brady. And Tom's a good friend and been doing working together for a few years. And since he he came out of the league, he wanted to work with a company, and he talked to a bunch of companies. He called me said, I really want to do this with Delta, and that's what I wanted to do with him, too, because you think about who has excelled at the highest levels in the world consistently for such a long duration period of time, and I wanted to hold him up as a leadership example for our team to continue to get better. And one of the things that Tom has, and you know this is incredibly humble, even though he's confident, he's still humble. He wants to learn and he's curious, and he's always prepared. And, you know, every single day is a new opportunity. Texted me this morning on some things he was thinking about for us, and that's, that's what we have to be, you know, we can never get accustomed to the seats that we're in. We have to go continue finding way to make that seat better for somebody else.

David Novak 48:57 

That's great. You know, this has been so much fun, Ed and I want to have a little bit more with you. I have this lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay, the three words that best describe you

Ed Bastian 49:09 

people, service and spirit. If you could

David Novak 49:13 

be one person for a day beside yourself? Who would it be?

Ed Bastian 49:16 

Well, I tell you, growing up, who I wanted to be. I wanted to

David Novak 49:18 

be Mickey Mantle me too. What's your biggest pet peeve? Obnoxious

Ed Bastian 49:22 

behaviors? Who would play you in a movie? Well, it's funny. So Will Ferrell just came out with a new movie, and at the closing scene of the movie, he was, he was with some woman, and she said, do you actually have a job? He says, Yeah, I'm the CEO of Delta Airlines. So it have to be Will Ferrell,

David Novak 49:41 

imagine you're going on a trip, but all you get to take with you is what you can fit in your pillow case, what's going inside? Oh,

Ed Bastian 49:49 

I used to do that from my that's my mom. Because, you know, growing up with nine kids, we go to Florida in our our station wagon, and all you could bring was what you're putting so I've experienced that. I I'd bring, uh. Yeah, I'd bring probably some some some comfortable clothes, maybe, maybe something that could golf in, some golf shoes and some running shoes. And I just, I'd want to make sure I was going someplace warm.

David Novak 50:13 

What was the hardest thing for a New York kid to learn about life in the south,

Ed Bastian 50:17 

for them to understand me? Learn, learning, learning how to say

David Novak 50:21 

you all, what's the one thing you do, just for you each

Ed Bastian 50:26 

morning I when I wake up, I spend about 15 minutes in trying to try and just isolate. And that's my reflection

David Novak 50:33 

time. Besides your family, what's your most prized possession?

Ed Bastian 50:37 

The Atlanta Braves gave me World Series ring a few years ago when they won the World Series.

David Novak 50:42 

And that ring, I've seen it from Terry McGurk, that's got some bling to it. No question about that. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?

Ed Bastian 50:50 

You'd hear classic rock. What's something about you? Few people would know. When I was my early years at Pricewaterhouse, I was an auditor. But you know, the award shows that people would come out on MTV. Used to have the Video Music Awards, the VMAs, and there was an accountant that would come out with the ballots. I was the accountant with the ballot, and I'd be given, I'd be giving out the balloting to all the great stories there.

David Novak 51:19 

Well, that's the end of the lighting round. Great job. Ed, just a few more questions. I'm let you go. Ed, you have four kids, you know, how do you lead at home?

Ed Bastian 51:27 

Force them to want to be, you know, anything that they don't want to be so and each of them are doing totally, totally separate things, which I'm so proud of. I mean, none of them are following me in in the airline businesses, which is great, because I didn't want, necessarily, that I make certain I as busy as I am, they, they all know that my most important job is to be dad and father, not not a CEO. And you know that comes in conflict a lot of times. You got to, you got to make trade offs, and it's hard. But they all, they all, we stay very, very close, and technology allows us to do that easier than ever. And

David Novak 52:06 

I know your wife, Deborah, is a very close partner of yours. You know, how do you interact in the business? Or do you,

Ed Bastian 52:13 

oh, she's got it. She's got more opinions than anybody. I practice my listening skills when I'm home.

David Novak 52:20 

That's good. That's good. All right. Edwin, when you look out, okay, what do you see as your unfinished business?

Ed Bastian 52:28 

Oh, I got, I got a few more years to run here. And really what I want is, you know that we're in a tough business. The airlines were tough, and they make progress. And, you know, some economic crisis or COVID, or some war breaks out, or some some calamity occurs, and so, you know, the performance of the company continues to get better, but it's always, it's always up and down. There's, there's a lot of volatility. I want us to to get to a place where we kind of immune ourselves as best we can from the risks getting our debts paid off. We still have some, some debt we want to get paid down in our balance sheet and and say, I've left, you know, the top brand in the airline industry with the fortress balance sheet that is unassailable, and people with the greatest heart of service. I mean, that's, I mean, you're always working towards that, but I think in the next few years we can actually attain that

David Novak 53:21 

last question, Ed, what's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? One

Ed Bastian 53:27 

piece of advice? You know, it really, it's about the people you surround yourself with. You know, it's your mentors, it's your community, it's, you know, just, you know, we all learned that as kids. My parents always told us, you know, the people you hang out with, just make sure those are people that lift you up and that that will bring you places you want to go, because they're going to bring you places you may not want to, want to land. And I remember, as a young leader, I did a lot of reading on leadership. I always wanted to be, you know, I'd attend sessions sometimes I'd always want to be curious. I'd be a curious learner about leadership. And one of the great joys I've had Mother, I've met many of the leaders I used to grow up, you know, reading about and learning from and and seeing Wow. I mean, they're humans, after all, but you know, but you know, just being able to relate to them, and, you know, just just making certain you're, in a you're in a circle of your your colleagues, of your community, your friends who take you places you want to go.

David Novak 54:29 

And Anna, I know that anyone that has the opportunity to be with you would consider it an honor, and they love hanging with you, because the kind of leader you are, the kind of person you are, the kind of father you are and your passion for people. And I want to thank you so much for taking the time to be on how leaders lead with me, and for setting such a good example for all leaders. Because I can tell from this conversation, this is, you know, this is stuff that you believe with your heart and soul and. Put it into practice. So thank you. David

Ed Bastian 55:02 

leader, leadership is also about sharing, right? And it's about about, you know, what we can do to grow our next generation of leaders? And that's, that's the real testament for, for you, me, for others, that you know, it's what we leave behind that's really going to make a difference. Great.

David Novak 55:17 

Well, thank you very much. Appreciate it. You

Yeah, Ed combines so many great qualities of a strong leader, a tough mindedness, a heart for people, and a humble spirit. I mean, with him at the helm, it's easy to see why Delta's the industry leader, but Ed knows that being the best isn't a finish line. It's a standard you have to keep meeting day after day after day. And that kind of consistency doesn't happen by accident. It takes focus, it takes humility, and it takes a deep belief that it's always possible to get better. So here's something to try this week. Look at the areas where your team is winning right now and ask yourself, how do we keep the edge? How do we keep getting better and better? Because I hate to say it, but I know you'll agree with this. If you think about it, if you're not improving, you're going to get beaten by someone who is so do you want to know how leaders lead. What we learned today is the great leaders never stop improving. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon. So be sure you subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast so that you don't miss it. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business, so that you'll become the very best leader you can be.