I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.
This time it is Rahul Samant, CIO of Delta Airlines.
As a road warrior, I was in awe of all the acrobatics he describes in the last few weeks as they downscaled for the short term as traffic fell off a cliff (like retiring their MD-88s and 777s years ahead of schedule, reducing cash burn of $100 million a day, refunds of $1.5 billion, 45% of employee base on voluntary leave). He discusses the massive compute cycles to reschedule flights, crews and operations. I did not realize they continue to fly a thousand flights a day with medical cargo, personnel and volunteers, repatriating US citizens from around the world, and other essential traffic.
Even more heartening to me and many of my readers who fly often, he describes all the activities to make passengers more comfortable about returning to the air (with electrostatic foggers, touchless check-ins, empty middle seats, high energy HEPA filters and other measures). He points out that Delta has worked very hard on its reliability image and metrics in the last few years. He expects the same emphasis on hygiene and for Delta to be known for that.
Finally, Rahul was in the financial services industry during the 2008-9 meltdown. He is obviously not pleased to be stuck in another major crisis but says he is glad he is with a company as caring as Delta.
BTW, towards the end I compliment his CEO, Ed Bastian - I should have said at 31:14 "why would we penalize that employee?" not "passenger"
Few of us will fly this Memorial Day, but enjoy this vision of travel in the not so distant future.
