A Message From Ed Bastian
Delta is marking its centennial year in 2025 by celebrating our storied history while looking ahead to the next century of flight. Even 100 years ago, when Delta was a crop duster with a handful of planes and a passion for the skies, our founder imbued the company with a simple but powerful idea: Our success should be driven by our values of always putting people first.
That’s why, for the past century, we’ve run our business to serve our employees, customers, communities and owners in the best way possible. Long before annual reports like these became routine, we were measuring how well we were taking care of Delta’s stakeholders. At the same time, we were learning from them, evolving and continually raising our bar as we grew into our global footprint. “Keep Climbing” isn’t just a slogan — it’s a way of life that dates to our earliest days. And today, it manifests itself in the Delta Difference that is powered by our people.
Throughout Delta’s history, our leadership has held fast to a simple philosophy we call the Virtuous Circle. When we take care of and invest in our people, they take care of our customers, who reward us with their business and loyalty. That, in turn, rewards our owners, who continue to trust the business with their capital, allowing further investment in Delta’s people and customers. When it works, all stakeholders share in our success.
The wisdom of that ideal continues to be evident. In the past year, Delta’s leadership was recognized with a No. 11 ranking on Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies list, awarded the most on-time North American airline by Cirium, named the Top U.S. Airline for the fourth year in a row by the Wall Street Journal and ranked by Fast Company in 2025 as one of the world’s Most Innovative Companies and No. 3 in the Corporate Social Responsibility category.
Safety First
Among all our priorities, the longest-standing mandate is safety, which harkens to the dawn of powered aviation. Safe and secure operations are our most fundamental obligation to customers, colleagues and the communities we serve, and our commitment to safety remains steadfast. Our safety expectations and standards are led by our code of ethics, titled The Way We Flyopens in a new window. And our teams continue to harness innovation and technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), to further elevate our safety-first culture. Commercial air travel remains, by far, the safest mode of transportation. That’s been the case for decades, thanks to an industry-wide collaboration mandating that we always learn from any incident, large or small, that may affect safety. Air travel is a competitive industry, but we never compete on safety.
Taking Care of People
Our 100,000+ employees live by Delta’s core values: Care, Integrity, Resilience, and Servant Leadership — they are the Delta Difference. We make strategic investments in our team and work to actively listen, encourage feedback and prioritize employee wellness to help our people thrive. And we always share our success, including $1.4 billion in employee profit sharing for 2024 (roughly five weeks' of pay for each employee), $86 million in 2024 performance incentives to our people for meeting operational targets and 5% raises for our frontline workgroups in 2024.
Serving Our Communities
Supporting the communities where we live, work and serve has been a fundamental value for Delta for the past century. In 2016, we formalized that support with our commitment to dedicate 1% of our profits to our communities. In 2024, Delta provided nearly $65 million in charitable giving on behalf of Delta Air Lines and The Delta Air Lines Foundation via partnerships with local, national and global nonprofits and civic organizations.
Supporting the Environment
Increasing efficiency and reducing fuel burn is great for our business and our carbon footprint, and we’ve been on that journey for much of our history. Thanks to constant innovation in aerospace design, today’s aircraft have more than twice the fuel efficiency of the earliest passenger jets. And we continue to transition Delta’s fleet to more fuel-efficient planes, with 38 new next-generation aircraft delivered in 2024 that are 28% more efficient, on average, than aircraft retired since 2019. Delta also continues to invest in and support the use of sustainable aviation fuel through collaborative commitments and short- and long-term offtake agreements and partnerships.
As we honor our 100 years of history, we’re already planning our future. We remain steadfast in our belief that travel has the power to break down barriers, bridge divides and move the world forward. This is the beginning of a new era in flight. As we take off into our next century, fasten your seatbelts — the best is yet to come.
Delta Air Lines
Delta Difference Report
In 2024, Delta turned 99 and embarked on our 100th year. While some companies credit innovation or leadership for this kind of milestone, at Delta, it’s because of our people, who are the Delta Difference, that we’ve made it this far and will continue soaring into the next century.
The Delta Difference isn’t new. For 100 years, Delta has been a company that puts people first — and that core value continues to shape how we care for employees, customers, communities and our planet. As we embark on our next 100 years, there’s no question that the Delta Difference is alive and well across the globe, and it will fuel our insatiable desire to never stop climbing.
This report is a celebration of that mindset that drives our people, who are the Delta Difference.