David i do not consider myself a journalist. And nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on a life of an interviewer, even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . David people say running an airline is not an easy thing to do. You have weather to deal with, Energy Prices to deal with, lots of employees, but you grew up in a family of nine children, so what is easier . [laughter] david growing up in a family of nine children, or running an airline . Ed running an airline, certainly. [laughter] ed our family was great. I am the oldest of nine. And i was sharing with david earlier that when i was five years old, we already had six kids in the house, nine kids sharing three bedrooms. 1. 5 baths. My dad was a dentist, he had his practice inside our house. And my mom worked for him. David wasnt that busy a practice at times, i guess [laughter] ed he must have had some gaps in his schedule. But the interesting thing about it, growing up, i didnt get on airplane until i was 25. Didnt board an airplane until i was 25 years old. David really . Ed we could not afford it. Too many of us, and it just wasnt who we were. I always recall one of my most stark visions from my childhood, we went on a family trip a year. My dad would get us all in the station wagon. Apologies to our safety friends and regulators in the audience, but there were no seat belts, no car seats. There were nine of us, my mom, my dad, my grandmother in the station wagon, all piled in. We were allowed to put whatever we could fit in our pillowcase. And brought it for two weeks. And that was our family trip. So i must have figured somehwere somewhere in my unconscious that there has to be a better way to travel. [laughter] ed i am still pursuing that mission to this day. David your mother must be proud that her son, her oldest son is the ceo of Delta Airlines, the largest u. S. Air carrier. Ed the largest carrier in the world. David that she ever call you with ideas or complaints . Ed all the time. All the time. She gives me her ideas. I always ask her please, when she is traveling not to tell anybody who she is. That never lasts. People have told me she applauds at the end of the safety announcement that i do. [laughter] ed it is kind of cute. David you travel on delta yourself, so you fly coach . Ed often. I find it more interesting back there. David what about the legroom . Ed the legroom is fine. [laughter] ed what you find when youre flying coach is that its more entertaining, so you dont worry about your legroom, you are looking at Everything Else going on. That is where the real people are. That is where the party is. David ok. So lets talk about running an airline generally. To be honest, there are a lot of people that say, if you want to run an airline or a good a big business, go to a Good Business school or work your way up to be a management expert, and so forth, but you were trained as an accountant. Which is a great profession, but some people would say that the best managers are not cpas. Ed one of the things about accountants that i think they get a bad rap is that they all are all about the numbers, very introverted, very into their analysis. What you learn as an accountant is the numbers are actually the language and the vocabulary of business. David for some reason, wall street doesnt Value Airline companies as much as you say they should. Why is it that wall street does not Value Airlines as much as you think they should . Ed well, we are moving in that direction. We are still not there. Our largest investor is warren buffett. He now owns 11 of delta. And warren, after years of having sworn off the industry, had a saying which i love he said you guys are the chicago cubs of the business world. You not only had a bad decade, you had a bad century. [laughter] david right . Ed so we got our bad century out of the way. And we are now in a place where we have really fixed the business. David you changed his mind, because he used to say, if a capitalist had been at kitty hawk seeing the Wright Brothers take off, he wouldve shot them down. Because there were no profits made in the Airline Industry for 100 years when you compare the profits versus the losses, but it has changed a bit now . Ed it has changed. He wouldnt say that today. This year will be the fifth year in a row our profits have been in excess of 5 billion. David ok, and your revenues are what percentage in the u. S. , what percentage outside . Ed our revenue is about two thirds u. S. , one third international. David international, is that more profitable than u. S. Generally because of the long flights . Ed no, no. It is actually just the opposite. International is more difficult to get to. The planes are bigger, the fuel costs more, the Service Levels obviously are substantially higher, and ticket prices, because theres a lot of competition internationally, are more suppressed. We actually make about 80 of our profits in the u. S. Closer to home. David you make a lot of profits , some people say, by owning your own refinery. Why do you need your own refinery . You dont trust other people to get gasoline to you . Ed well, we do, and we certainly use a lot of refineries. But about six or seven years ago, as refineries up and down the east coast were being closed when oil prices and crude prices were well north of 100, we saw our cost of jet fuel was escalating. We were in fact paying another 25 a barrel on top of the crude prices to get jet fuel. Because we are the most priceinsensitive consumers of that product. We dont decide each day whether we fuel up our planes or not. We tell them six months out that we are coming, so any of the costs refiners have were being pushed onto the airlines. So we needed to break that curve and get more supply in the market. We have got a great refinery outside of philadelphia that we acquired. We opened it it was closed for about a year we put a whole Community Back to work. And it was a great story. To this day, it has been very profitable. We have earned our returns on that many fold. David in the 1970s, there was a big push for airline deregulation. Prices had been set by the icc. Ed thats right. We then probably had 10 or 12 major domestic airlines. Now we have, more or less or , three four. Has deregulation really worked for the American People or not . Ed it has absolutely worked. One of the changes in the industry that caused problems for years, was that we were seen as a commodity. Price was almost the sole determinant of what airline you took. We have changed that paradigm where we are now competing on quality, service and people. David suppose i say i want a cheap price but i want some good food. Is food a big deal to people who fly these days . Ed food is important. We have brought a lot of food back. The industry 15 years ago wound up getting rid of food, getting rid of basically anything and wound up charging fees galore. We have come full circle. We have reintroduced main cabin Food Services on our aircraft. And in international, really improving the overall quality. David suppose i say i want a cheap fare i dont care about food. I will bring my own food on can you bring your own food on . Ed you can bring your own food on. David bring my own food on, and i just want to make sure my luggage is not lost. What percentage of people actually lose their luggage . Ed we never lose. We call them mishandled. David mishandled. [laughter] [applause] ed we always know where it is, it just takes as a little longer takes us a little longer to get to sometimes. [laughter] david when you are an airline executive, you basically have two companies you can buy planes from. More or less. Ed two, not more or less. David more or less i was trying to be polite that more or less. You have boeing and you have airbus. You fly a lot of boeings. In fact, your longest flight is from atlanta to johannesburg, 17 hours . Ed thats right. David and thats a boeing 777 . Ed thats right. David but you chose not to buy the 737 max, for reasons unrelated to what later became a problem. Is that an advantage to you now, because you have the airbus 321 and that has given you more capacity than some of your competitors, and you take credit for that decision or was that luck . Ed i put that solely in the rather be lucky than smart category. We are big fans of boeing, and were hoping to see the max fly quickly into the skies, but safety was never a part of the consideration set in making that decision. David while you are in bankruptcy, u. S. Air said, we want to take you over. Was that considered a friendly offer at the time . Ed everybody assumed that was going to be a foregone conclusion. The people of the company stood and they said, that is not going to happen. David you grew up in poughkeepsie . Ed poughkeepsie, new york. David you went to college at . Ed Saint Bonaventure university. David you got your accounting degree. So you are minding your business, you are an accountant at price waterhouse. So what were you doing at fritolay . Ed i was fortunate at price waterhouse, i moved quickly through the ranks there, made partner probably too early in age, when i was 32, 33 years old. At that point, in that profession, that was kind of the pinnacle of success. I said, well, if i am in a company where the pinnacle of success is 32, i need to go someplace to learn more and continue to develop. I got a call from a friend that said pepsi was hiring, and introduced me to a person in fritolay. Down in texas. I moved down to dallas at fritolay. And i dont have a graduate degree. I just went to an undergrad at Saint Bonaventure. I always considered to this day , my seveng at pepsico year spent there as my postgraduate work because it is a fascinating company. David you are at fritolay and then a headhunter called you and said, how about Delta Airlines . Ed yeah. Yeah. I was an active business traveler. I was traveling 80 of my time, a lot internationally. So i thought i already knew how the airlines worked. And i knew all the things that needed to be fixed about the airlines to make it better. Of course, you get there and you actually take a peek behind the curtain and see how complex it is. Well, i never understood what actually went into it, but it was an industry that was fascinating to me because i was a big consumer of it. David so you became a Senior Vice President for finance, then you became the chief financial officer. Ed chief financial officer. David then you became the president , then the ceo in may of 2016, right . Ed thats correct. David you had some problems before you became the ceo and ultimately, delta filed for bankruptcy in 2005. Why did you have to file for bankruptcy . Ed well, it was the aftermath, really, of a series of events which 9 11 triggered. We lost our International Business almost overnight. The competition in the u. S. Was so competitive, with so Many Airlines trying to get each others share, pushing prices lower and lower. Almost all the airlines wound up filing. David while you are in bankruptcy, usair said they want to take you over. Was that considered a friendly offer . Ed doug parker will never live that down. No, we had a pretty hostile takeover battle. Ive got an interesting story. We were bankrupt, we werent worth anything at the time. Usair came in and offered 10 billion to buy delta for a company that is not worth anything. So everyone assumed, well, thats going to be a foregone conclusion. The people of the company stood, and they said, it is not going to happen, we have a better idea, we have a Better Business plan. We are able to convince the creditors through the restructuring process to stay with delta, and as a result of that you see what we have been able to do. David as part of that, what happened is, you said to the employees and your colleagues, we will give you 10 of the profits to the employees, is that more or less right . Ed when we went through the restructuring, people took a lot of pay cuts. Benefit losses, a lot of change. And we made a commitment to the employees then at that point that once we became profitable, 15 of the profits would go back to the people, which we honor to this day. We still do. David so how much did that produce, lets say, last year for employees . Ed last year, we paid 1. 3 billion to our people in profit sharing. David does that mean your stock price would be higher if you did not pay it to them, or you have happier employees . Ed i think our stock price would be lower if we didnt pay it. David is internet available on all your planes . Ed it is available on almost all of our planes. Our smallest regional jets do not have them but wifi is on all of them. David you charge for it . Ed we do charge for it. Not for a good reason. I am a Firm Believer that we need to make wifi free across all of our services, and we are working towards that. [applause] david you are the ceo. So you presumably have some influence. [laughter] ed well, i do have influence. They have heard me hundreds of times on this, including gogo, which is our service provider. I always tease them, i call them nogo. They have made a lot of progress, now slowgo, and they will eventually get to gogo. [laughter] ed one of the reasons why this is not a good reason why we charge you dont pay for internet practically anywhere else is that planes do not have the technical capacity and capability yet, if we made it for free, the system would crash. So once it gets about above a 10 take rate on board, the performance starts to erode. And if you turned it on for free, which we have tested many times, it is still not at the level it needs to be. So we are investing heavily in the technical capacity in terms of the satellite spectrum. David you mean that we can fly to the moon and back, and we cant have everybody using the internet on the plane at the same time . Ed thats exactly you sound like me, david. One of the things i tell people is we are closer to the satellites in the sky, but as they remind me, we are not traveling 500 Miles Per Hour as we are sitting at home with our wifi broadband. David now, there was a proposal a while ago for airlines to let people talk on their cell phones on airplanes, but that was voted down i think by the fcc. Because a lot of people do not like it. Ed that was voted down by me. I will never allow that on delta. Whether they allow it or not, we are not allowing it. [applause] david ok. All right. Now, we havent built a new airport in this country of any size since, i think 23 years in denver. Now laguardia is being redone and so forth. Why is the Airline Industry you are responsible for helping to build the airports or not . Ed we are actually building airports ourselves. We got tired of waiting for the government partnerships out there that are trying to crack that code. So we have massively improved the flight experience, the onboard experience. The next thing is the airports themselves. The airports in our country were built for the 1960s. David but you are building airports where . Ed we are building airports everywhere. We are building the new laguardia airport, delta on its own balance sheet, it is going to take a few years. Airport construction is the most difficult construction that is done because you have to build it, live, and operate it at the same time. We are building a new airport in lax, a new airport in salt lake city. We are building a new airport in seattle, a new International Facility we modernized atlanta. David speaking of government support, you have been an advocate for not allowing airlines that have government subsidies to compete against you. And is that of a problem . A big problem . Ed it is a big problem. And i have to give the Trump Administration great credit for recognizing that and reaching agreements with the uae and qatar last year to draw attention to it and stop it, or at least freezing where its at. David are they doing anything about it . What is going to happen . Ed i think they absolutely are being responsive to the administration. Today in the persian gulf, there are 30 airplanes a day that fly between the persian gulf and the United States, not one of them is a u. S. Airline. They are all middle eastern airlines. If there was a fair playing field, which is what the open open sky agreements require, open sky agreements require, there is no question that the u. S. Airlines would be operating, but we cant, because those fares are subsidized, and the costs are paid for by the government. David the air Traffic Control systems, some people say that it was invented in the 1950s and 1960s and they have not modernized much. Is it really out of date . Ed thats true. Absolutely. David what are you doing about that, what can you do . Ed it is absolutely safe, but unfortunately, it is radar based. Many cars have better gps than we do in terms of what we are able to access in our airplanes. The opportunities to improve the air Traffic Control system are not only speed for the customers, but it is the efficiency, sustainability of the environment, the opportunity to make a difference. Government dysfunction has been one of the reasons why the air Traffic Control system because weve got the faa on a fiveyear leash. You cant change out the air Traffic Control systems with our current funding models. That is why we have been advocating for different models. Actually go after Longterm Technology project and do what most countries around the world have better air Traffic Control systems than the u. S. Does. David you have a pattern of meeting with employees fairly regularly called the velvet program. Ed so when we went through our hard times, we did not have a lot of cash. And we decided the only way we were ever be successful again because delta has a proud history is that we were going to have to reconnect with our people. David so today, what do you do for outside activities there . This is a fulltime job, obviously, but do you have time for anything else . Ed i love to golf. I dont get much time and i am not very good at it, but i do enjoy that. We do serious work. We do hard work. And i think its important for myself to remind myself while i might do serious things, not to take myself too seriously. And it is kind of a reminder to stay light on my feet, to remember the importance of human interaction. [laughter] ed i did also run the new york marathon last year. So that actually helped as well. David two hours and ed that was the first few miles. [laughter] david but you finished. Ed i finished. Im here. David did you have a delta thing, delta ceo logo on you . Ed i wore my delta colors loud and proud. Raised 2 million for Cancer Research for children. [applause] ed thank you. I dont think i would be doing another one of those. I am still feeling the effects. David i havent done a marathon i would fly a marathon. I would fly 26 miles. [laughter] david you have a pattern of meeting with employees fairly regularly. You call it the velvet program. Can you explain what that is . Ed yeah. So when we went through our hard times back in the bankruptcy era, we did not have a lot of cash. We didnt have anything, you know . People were actually taking pay cuts. We decided the only way we would ever be successful again delta has a proud history was that we would have to reconnect with our people and get something to catch their attention. So our people were downtrodden. Years of pay cuts and job losses, and all the difficult things we remember from almost 20 years ago. So in downtown atlanta, there was an abandoned macys building, and we decided to take out a couple of floors. I am not sure we ever even paid for it. I think we just squatted. I dont even know if they knew we were in there. We would bring our employees, we brought all our employees, 600 to 700 at a time for a day, a day and half, an opportunity to talk about the airline. We had no powerpoints, no slides. We deliberately kept it from being as uncorporate as possible. We had couches, chairs, curtains, we had low lights as people were walking in. People would come into the room and see some of our people dancing around and trying to lighten up no wonder we were bankrupt, they probably thought. We have a crisis on our hands and these people are dancing in this abandoned macys building. But what it did is it got their attention to focus on what was important. Our people wanted to know it wasnt their fault that we went through the hard times. I think so often, when companies go through difficult times, employees are made to feel they are the reason. That they are too expensive, not productive enough. That they are a cost, when it when really they are the very best asset you have. And we do these meetings to this day. We can afford to actually pay for our own space and do Hotel Lobbies and other venues, but we have a dozen of them a year all around the u. S. Where we bring people from different disciplines together and we talk about the future. And i still lead every one of those, as i did 15 years ago, because that engagement is so critical in what we do. David so how do you grow the value of your airline . You just make it more profitable by flying more miles, more acquisitions . Anything left to buy in this business . Ed the airlines are thought to be a mature industry. After all, there is not new places in the u. S. Left to fly to. We are building bigger airports, bigger airplanes, but not new destinations. So Global Expansion is important to us. We are doing that through our partnerships and delta flying many parts of the world. First of all, i think people are more aware of the world than ever before. People want to travel. They want to experience. And again, interesting, because we are living in probably as divisive a time as we can recall for many years. You would think this would hurt airline travel, but technology and social media and instagram, pictures, people want to go and explore and see for themselves something they may have read about. Now they feel that is affordable. Opportunities not only for the millennials and the young generation that want to experience, but also baby rumors and all people. David i would focus on the baby baby boomers and all people. David i would focus on the baby boomers bucket list because they are going to have to do those sooner than the millennials bucket list, right . [laughter] ed we are investing in both. David suppose the president of United States said, i watched this interview, you are an impressive person. Youve done a great job, why dont you come in government and help us in some way . What would you say . Ed i would say i am happy to advise, but i am not sure i am i got my work cut out for me. David suppose i am a College Graduate or a young Business School graduate, why should i want to work in an airline or delta . What is the advantage . Ed free travel. [laughter] ed anybody likes free travel for not only themselves but their partner. If you love people, it is a great business. You are out in the public eye every single day. We do not have desk jobs. You know, our desk jobs in the sky. Every day, your Work Environment is different. And youve got different people coming through and you have to adapt. You think about why people travel. People travel for all reasons. For happy reasons, sad reasons, for business, for pleasure, to go explore, to meet their grandchild for the first time, and there is all this emotion in this tube of roughly 200 people all sitting within 40 yards of one another, so it is a social experience as well. And people that want to actually make the world better get into travel. When it comes to using data, everyone is different. Which is why Xfinity Mobile is a different kind of Wireless Network that lets you design your own data. Choose unlimited, shared data, or mix lines of each and switch any line, anytime. Giving you more choice and control compared to other top wireless carriers. Save up to 400 a year when you switch. Plus, unwrap 250 off a new samsung phone. Click, call or visit a store today. Abigail coming up on bloomberg best, the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. It is a new year. 2020 begins with prospects for a trade deal signing ceremony. I dont have hopes for a phase two trade deal, but it is nice they are signing phase one. Abigail data from china shows the worlds secondlargest economy is getting back on track. Should be maintained until the Chinese New Year period. Abigail some of 2019s hot spots remain a source of concern, from north korea to hong kong to the middle east. They are blaming iran for orchestrating that attack against the u. S. Embassy