Friday, February 13th was Profit Sharing Day at Delta. They paid out $1.3 billion in bonuses and also announced raises. Profit sharing amounted to 8.9% of salaries or about a month’s worth of pay.
Delta’s profit sharing exceeds the amounts paid out by the rest of the U.S. airline industry combined and it’s the ninth time they’ve paid out over $1 billion in profit sharing – basically every year since 2014 with a break during the pandemic.
- Delta has an industry-leading profit sharing formula (American matches that formula with some work groups, but doesn’t make much moeny)
- Delta makes more money than the rest of the industry
- So their profit sharing was more than that of the other airlines in the U.S. industry combined.
Those are the impressive numbers, but $1.3 billion isn’t just a number. It’s something very human. Because, while I’m a regular critic of Delta in a lot of ways, there’s something for employees of the airline to celebrate working there. Their shared efforts at service, reliability, and taking care of customers comes back in one clear moment each year in a very concrete way. And the whole company stops to live in that moment.
Here’s a great look at the actual day itself at headquarters, with each work group hosting celebrations, “a legit party over in IT” with DJs, karaoke, slushies, candy, video game rooms – and peach cobbler. Gelato from flight ops!
Delta’s business class isn’t better than American’s business class. They still fly too many 767s with an ancient seat. American AAdvantage and even MileagePlus are better loyalty programs than SkyMiles. But Delta employees are more likely to seem like they want to be at work on a given day, to appear happy to actually do their jobs, and exude a sense of professionalism. That shines through to customers.
Problems at American aren’t just cultural. They’re fleet and passenger layout (they don’t have enough premium seats, including extra legroom coach). But the culture at Delta is just so much stronger, that goes a long way towards making them more profitable, and profit sharing aligns incentives so that this cycle becomes self-reinforcing. Culture is a big part of why I say that the CEO of an airline has to sell their vision to employees, not just tweak policies and sign off on capital investment.
Hard pass on Delta
Wildly overpriced
a rip off on redemption seats and revenue tickets
and then their prehistoric aircraft which dinosaurs once flew
Off topic Skyteam meh
award availability dismal .Let the uninformed buyer beware
I’m genuinely happy for their team members happiness and financial success
The only thing I can give Delta some credit for is there premium lounge experience at LAX
it’s the best of any Legacy carrier in the US.If only they could get their lounge to fly
I might be a customer.
AA FA’s passed around a bottle of Boone’s Farm and snarled at pax to celebrate their profit share
Just flew from Atlanta to Paris and found the beds spacious enough to be comfortable and the people kind and caring
I go out of my way to fly Delta. While it does have a significant share of the markets I fly to the most, I simply refuse to pay a premium (and be convinced it is a premium product) to fly its B767-300ER, B767-400ER, and A330-200/300s. My most heavily traveled routes are to LAX, CDG, LHR, ZRH, and FCO.
The airline is far better run than any of its US peers, that is true (except when it comes to recovery from IT issues and weather, in which case it melts down and blames passengers).
The premium lounge experience is a cut above, yes, but that’s because the Delta One product in the air is wildly inconsistent seat wise.
In any case, all this enterprise splurge is nice, but when the US lands in a deep recession, which it is going to, all those employee perks will be forgotten.
First sentence should read, I go out of my way to NOT fly Delta.
Delta figured out a long time ago that taking care of its people gives them the incentive to take care of DL’s customers.
Southwest copied the same philosophy even for a highly unionized workforce but has struggled to deliver over the past couple years – and yet their people are still pretty loyal to the company.
American and United have long had adversarial relations with management – as was true with just about every other legacy carrier although Alaska has done an above average job w/employee relations compared to legacy carriers.
Emirates proves that the notion that an airline must have consistently best in class products is not the basis for good service or rankings. EK also proves that not having to deal w/ short haul and discount domestic passengers gives you a separate clientele. DL understands that principle.
It should also be noted that DL has a strong post deregulation history of growing into other carrier strength markets; no other airline has added 2 organically grown hubs in two other carrier hubs plus continually weakening other carriers in DL hubs; employees like to see their employer win and DL delivers that.
There seems little on the horizon that will keep DL from its leadership position in the industry WRT employee compensation including profit sharing, profitability, and overall customer service.
My expectations of DL are high because DL told me to expect great things. I will say DL is generally far more consistent than their peers in delivering on what I value from an airline. DL employees have earned their bonuses.
Good for them!
I genuinely feel jealous of people who get delta as a hub, I’m stuck with garbage AA and their horrible grumpy FAs, garbage “inclusive” amenity kits and domestic first cabin that competes with the worst third world country quality.
ALPA was able to negotiate their profit sharing formula as part of their 2007 restructuring contract coming out of bankruptcy in large part because the prospects of profits back then weren’t great. As Delta became more consistently profitable management wanted to drastically reduce profit-sharing in exchange for paltry pay rate increases. Wisely, the Delta pilots voted no on that deal in July 2015 keeping that formula in tact that all Delta employees and AA & UA pilots enjoy. So much for enlightened and benevolent management.
American Airlines is sad and pathetic. Their employees must see this and just feel like total losers. They need to turn it around. If you only live once why work at AA?
BL93 hit the nail right on the head. I too am jealous of those with a DL hub.I am also stuck with an AA hub and the terrible experience that comes with it.
At least the corporate propaganda was accompanied by a nice profit sharing check. Most of the time you get just the propaganda because the CEO class doesn’t believe money motivates us. Just virtual happy hours where you bring your own booze to hang out online with people you really don’t like.
This from the same IT department that thought deploying CrowdStrike was a good idea.
Yes, having CRWD protect as many DL computers as DL did was a mistake.
And yet, DL still ended up w/ a lower rate of cancellation in 2024 than AA or UA.
And DL still managed to generate the highest profits among US airlines the quarter of the CRWD meltdown despite taking a $500 million charge.
DL people HAVE enjoyed not only the highest profit sharing but DL mgmt led the industry in raising salaries post covid. UA’s pilots handedly rejected a contract that the company presented which set the ground for DL to more than double the value of the killed UA contract.
And then DL followed the pilot contract w/ non-contract worker salaries which have happened multiple times while more than half of UA employees are working at below industry average salaries and their FAs are now five years past the amendable date for a new contract.
It’s no wonder that UA’s customer service levels are just mid-tier.
TD says, “Yes, having CRWD protect as many DL computers as DL did was a mistake.”
I agree, and so are the unilateral changes DL management made to the pilot trip assignment program that is hamstringing their ability to recover from irregular ops. Data points or a pattern?
a problem that needs to be fixed, yes.
and yet EWR is right back to being as bad if not worse than other NYC airports because of overscheduling which has been going on for years. A pattern that has existed at EWR by CO and UA? yes, of course.
and now it will play out at ORD all summer long in the name of the same pursuit of market share that has created multiple EWR meltdowns.
CRWD was reliance on a single vendor. The same thing that multiple airlines including UA have done with Boeing which has led to groundings and delivery delays that have impacted the operation.
Trying to argue that one kind of vendor reliance is forgiveable while another is not is hypocrisy of the highest form.
Actually, since the capacity was limited by the FAA, EWR is leading NYC airports in on-time performance well ahead of LGA & JFK.
absolutely false.
Look at DOT data for November, the latest month released, and you will see that JFK had a higher on-time percentage than EWR
The combination of DL’s LGA and JFK hub on-times is higher than UA at EWR
Another exception that proves the rule.
EWR’s on-time performance has been far better than LGA & JFK since the FAA imposed capacity limitations in June 2025, and just wait for the December & January data with all Delta and jetBlue’s operational problems in NYC.
Delta is a fine airline. Hopefully, these operational struggles are fixable.
C E Woolman once said, “An employee’s devotion to his or her company, dedication to the job and consideration for the customer determine a company’s reputation.” And, “No one person is an airline. An airline is a team. It must be friendly, courteous, cooperative, efficient and bound as closely as a devoted family.” Delta has its IT issues, yeah. I get that. The company has its detractors, but on a whole, by treating the employees as the family Mr. Woolman envisioned, has paid off. One detractor noted “corporate propaganda”. No one at Delta has swallowed the “Kool Aid”. The executive team knows what they are doing, lets everyone know the reasons and the expectations. Then, as Ed Bastian said, “…we just watch the magic happen.” He once mentioned that those who come to work at Delta and can’t assimilate into the culture, will not succeed.He is correct. Those that complain the loudest about Delta and its success just wish that they were a part of Mr. Woolman’s “family”.
Late to this party, and yet, just wanna echo @rebel’s zingers above: Delta pilots union; Delta copying others then adding a little extra to keep ‘em happy. As I’ve reminded Tim many times before, this house of cards comes down during the next economic downturn.
1990,
doubling is not “just a little more” It is a wholesale indictment of UA’s offer to its pilots and the ALPA leadership at UA that offered it to pilots.
And DL not only led the industry with record post-covid pilot salary increases but expanded it to all DL employees, something UA still cannot and will not do.
And then DL pays the highest profit sharing among airlines anywhere on the planet
Win is right.
DL figured out how to make its customers and employees succeed and the two strategies work the same.
TD says, “doubling is not “just a little more””
Add that nonsense the your ever longer list. The overwhelming UA pilot no vote helped DL pilots bring their deal in along with what you admitted was Delta management wanting to increase labor costs as a competitive maneuver. So aggressive by EB & DL.
Interestingly, UA ALPA were the first to get this level of profit sharing and the DL ALPA refined the formula to better capture increased profits and keep up with inflation. Airline employees should be grateful to ALPA for PS.
Happy employees make for satisfied customers. I no longer chase status. Now I just book F domestic or J Intl and forget about nonexistent upgrades. Plan to try DL more from DFW to destinations that otherwise require AA connex via PHL or horrible CLT. AA has pretty much lost me, and I’m a multi-decade EXP, a status that essentially worthless nowadays except during weather / IRROPS. .
>They’re fleet and passenger layout