Yesterday’s big travel story was Delta’s announcement that the airline’s CEO, Richard Anderson, will retire on May 2, and be succeeded by Ed Bastian, currently Delta’s president.
Anderson’s lasting legacy as Delta’s leader is likely to be a positive one. He successfully oversaw the merging of Delta and Northwest. He pushed the airline to become one of the world’s most efficient operations. He kept the airline among the industry’s most reliable and prolific profit-generators.
For shareholders and much of the traveling public, Anderson’s Delta was an airline that made good on its key deliverables. But that’s not the whole story.
He was also notably curmudgeonly, crabbily withdrawing Delta’s support for Airlines for America, the airlines’ most prominent lobbying group, and waging a quixotic, high-profile battle with the Gulf carriers, which he claimed benefited unfairly from government subsidies.
RELATED: Delta Plans to Displace Elites with Paying Passengers in First Class
Where Anderson’s legacy turns decidedly negative is in his relentless focus on profitability, which often overwhelmed more consumer-oriented considerations. So, while Delta may get you to your destination on time, it won’t get you there cheaply, or comfortably, or in exchange for a generous dose of frequent-flyer miles.
In particular, the redesign of Delta’s SkyMiles program left many average travelers questioning their loyalty to the airline.
Flyers React to Anderson’s Exit
Given the criticism Delta has been subject to from the frequent-flyer community, I was curious about the reaction among road warriors to Anderson’s leaving. For that, there’s no better source than FlyerTalk, which predictably has a very active discussion thread dedicated to the upcoming management transition.
Given the makeup of the FlyerTalk community, which is populated by particularly seasoned travelers, many with elite status in multiple airline and hotel programs, my expectation was that the response to Anderson’s departure would be a collective sigh of relief, with some scathingly negative comments thrown in for good measure. Not so. In fact, surprisingly, there were many more complimentary comments than there were slams.
A few, representing both the kudos and the knocks:
Wow – I thought Richard Anderson has been a good CEO.
He’s been a good CEO. Certainly better than Jeffy and Dougie at UA and AA. Delta is historically profitable, and has the best OTP/reliability of any US carrier. If you’re looking for an airline that just works, Delta is really the only choice these days.
This management team has succeeded in delivering the most important aspect of air travel (besides safety) to most pax on a consistent basis – operational excellence – getting pax to
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