Rapid Response: Delta CEO Ed Bastian: Turbulence, recovery, and risk
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2021
⏱️ 41 minutes
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Summary
With 75% of U.S. customers saying they'll soon be vaccinated, Delta is embracing a new phase, opening up middle seats as of May 1. CEO Ed Bastian bet at the start of the pandemic that focusing on consumer confidence and reinforcing Delta’s brand would ultimately pay big rewards. Now that strategy will be put to the test -- even as Bastian clashes with Georgia officials over the state's new voting law. How quickly will domestic demand rebound? When will business and international travel return? And what blowback may Delta face for its political stance? For Bastian, being on the hot seat is just another day on the job.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What are we going to do to build a better future for us all? |
| 0:04.0 | The Georgia controversy that we are currently involved in, |
| 0:07.3 | voter rights need to be protected. |
| 0:10.2 | They're sacrosanct, they need to be enhanced in terms of ensuring that there's |
| 0:14.4 | equitable and fair access to the polls in a safe and secure manner. |
| 0:18.0 | We said at the onset that we needed to restore confidence in our customers' |
| 0:23.2 | ability to travel safely by air. |
| 0:26.0 | Today, when we survey our customers, 65% of them tell us they expect they will be |
| 0:31.2 | vaccinated by May the 1st in 75% say by Memorial Day. |
| 0:36.7 | That's far, far better than any survey people have been putting out there |
| 0:40.8 | in terms of vaccine rates. So it's encouraging. |
| 0:44.4 | Customers aren't going to want to fly in an airline that's not optimistic |
| 0:48.7 | about what's to come. Employees aren't going to work for a company and |
| 0:52.4 | you're thrust in the CEO kind of in this odd way of being the face of that and the |
| 0:56.1 | voice of that like never before. Some of us myself included, |
| 0:59.8 | felt like we've had to put the company on our shoulders and kind of walk it |
| 1:03.2 | back through this last year to hold it together and we've done that. |
| 1:06.8 | We're going to keep climbing and we see those guys ahead. |
| 1:12.8 | That's Ed Bastion, CEO of Delta. Ed appeared on this podcast soon after the |
| 1:18.2 | pandemic hit when the airline industry was |
| 1:20.8 | reeling. I'm Bob Safian, former editor of Fast Company, |
| 1:24.9 | founder of the Flux Group and host of Massage of Scale Rapid Response. |
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