A Conversation with Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Officer, Edward Bastian

A Conversation with Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Officer, Edward Bastian

Edward Bastian, chief executive officer of Delta Air Lines, sat down with C Space Chairman Diane Hessan at the March 9 meeting of the Boston College Chief Executives Club. Bastian, who joined the airline as a vice president of finance in 1998 and became CEO last May, talked about bringing the six-billion-dollar company back from bankruptcy, Delta’s employee profit-sharing plan, the importance of airport infrastructure, and improving the air travel experience. "Fare is always going to be important, but quality of service is to us the most important attribute on which to compete," Bastian said. Millennials, he pointed out, now make up 35 percent of Delta’s customer base. "They're a generation that values experiences rather than owning things. So we think our industry is the perfect industry for that," he said. "They value transparency. They value quality. They want to be connected. We’re spending an awful lot of time trying to get people connected in the sky."