Delta Air Lines: Debunking the Myth

A former vice-president at Delta analyzes the airline's current market position and argues that poor management has left the airline unprepared to face the 21st century

A former legal counsel for Delta who is now with an aircraft-leasing firm, Davis takes a thoroughly negative view of the generally popular Atlanta-based carrier. Poor marketing, including failure to computer-network properly with travel agencies when deregulation brought increased competition to the air passenger business, is only the worst of Delta's failings as described here. In almost every budget categoryemployee compensation, fuel costs, aircraft sell-offs, etc.Delta faces trouble, along with the perils of its poor long-range planning for future equipment and airport facilities, according to Davis. A chronicle of corporate infighting leads into the author's closing prescription for what ails the airline (whose prospects in a recent Business Week article were described in very favorable terms).
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.