What does Delta really need to do to fix itself? "Empowering employees" sound great (it's the right buzzwords after all) but my feeling is that the #1 emphasis needs to be on quality & getting their metrics out of the gutter.

I recently posted a summary of the July D.O.T. stats here. Delta and/or its regional airlines bottom out in all five categories. Delta needs to make a visible & successful effort to be the best; the biggest & worst just doesn't cut it.

Focus on quality and customer satisfaction and the rest will follow. The emphasis should be on reducing the numbers of customers that require the attention of a newly empowered employee in the first place.

And perhaps the biggest challenge in this: The quality of the customer's experience (aside perhaps from claustrophobia) must be good on all the regional airlines as well as on mainline Delta.