Delta CEO to NRA: “Our Values Aren’t for Sale”
Jackie Reddy May 31, 2018
In an interview with CBS, Delta Air Lines’ CEO Ed Bastian outlined some of the changes that passengers can expect to see at the carrier. In addition to offering his comments on the airline’s changing fleet and uniforms, he also offered insight on its decision to disassociate itself from the NRA.
Judging by comments made by CEO Ed Bastian, change is on the cards for Delta Air Lines. In an interview with CBS This Morning on Wednesday, Bastian revealed that passengers traveling with the carrier can expect to see new planes as well as new staff uniforms.
The outlet reports that, according to information provided by the Securities and Exchange Commission, “the average age of Delta planes is 16.7 years.”
Offering his comments, Bastian said, “It’s not the age of the plane that matters, because if you look at our reliability statistics, we’re leading the industry by a large measure across every dimension. But what we’re doing is we’re buying new planes. We’ve got 65 new planes coming into the fleet this year. Next year’s going to be 85.”
In addition to new planes, Bastian revealed that the carrier will be plumping for new staff uniforms designed by Zac Posen.
Speaking of the “sophisticated look,” Bastian said, “One of the things that we talk to our employees and customers about is our uniforms, while they’re very traditional, very professional, don’t stand out.”
The new uniforms, he said, will help to ensure that “no one will miss the Delta people.”
Bastian also took the time to offer his comments on Delta’s decision to end its association with the National Rifle Association (NRA).
“When we saw the divisive commentary coming out of the NRA following the shooting, and we saw how our brand was featured on their website because we gave a relatively modest discount, we said we couldn’t have our brand affiliated with any organization that had that level of divisiveness attached the response to the shooting,” he said.
While the NRA was “emotional” about Delta’s decision, Bastian said, “Our values aren’t for sale.”
He also offered insight into the kind of anti-bias training offered by Starbucks last week. Bastian was eager to affirm that this kind of training is already in place at Delta. “We’ve had all of our employees go through bias training and we continue to focus on that … you have to at all times be aware of your environment, not just in the U.S., on an international scale as well,” he said.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
"Our values are not for sale" I beg to differ - if the NRA signed a major flight pass deal with DL I'd suspect they'd change their tune. The truth of the matter no one boycotts airlines these days, it's whatever is the cheapest, most convenient option. Just last year there was all that uproar over the David Dao incident and we heard tons of people claiming they'd boycott UA. If people boycotted airlines based on an incident at the airline there would be no more airlines to fly! In reality, the only people boycotting DL are frequent flyers loyal to Star Alliance (UA) or OneWorld (AA).
Highly educated urbanites? More like educated idiots. Keep flying over our neck of the woods, we don't want you here.
Let's assume he's pandering to "liberals" or folks that are culturally liberal. So what? It makes business sense and Delta is a business. Delta's job is to focus on their clientele that brings them the most revenue and hint: it ain't the NRA worshiping gun nuts in rural America. The people who bring in the most money for Delta are high wage earning, highly educated, urbanites, most of whom tend to be culturally liberal and celebrate this move by Delta. Bastian could personally be the most pro-NRA guy there is, but he's not an idiot, and he knows its a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you.
its interesting that he did not say what other organizations Delta offered or continues to offer discounts too. also why not talk about the petrol tax benefits that were on the chopping block.
Pandering more likely to the majority of Americans, liberals and conservatives, who understand that there is no misconnect between the end Amendment and common sense, 21st century weapons regulation.