Are you thinking of flying, deciding if you should bring your family on a plane?

Just how safe is it to fly right now in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic?

I'm Poppy Harlow, and in a special episode of CNN's boss files, Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian

joins me to talk about the state of the airline industry.

In a remarkably candid conversation, he calls for a federal mask mandate on all commercial planes. He tells me why

he refuses to sell middle seats, even though most of his competitors are, and Delta is losing

$30 million a day. And on race and diversity, he tells me there is so much more he needs to do to help advance black employees at Delta.

Here's our exclusive interview.

Ed Bastian, thank you so much for being here.

Happy to be with you, Poppy.

All right, so, I mean, so much has changed in just two weeks.

Give us an overview right now.

What is the state of the airline industry today?

Well, we just finished the July 4th holiday, and we had a pretty nice demand pickup for the 4th of July.

Delta, we've been pretty conservative and cautious about the capacity we've added since the April lows.

Today we're flying a schedule that's about down 30% or excuse me, it's 30% of what it ought to be at this time of year. But that's about twice

where we were just a few months ago. So demands picking up, but in the post-July 4th period,

there's no question that the spread of the virus, as well as all the quarantine measures

that have gone into place, has started to pull back the demand expectations. So I'd say we're in

kind of a cautious pause right now in terms of any additional growth. You, in fact, sent a memo,

I believe, today or yesterday to employees that said you're basically not going to add more flights right now.

That's how much things have changed?

...