So thank you very much for joining us today. I imagine you've all spent a lot of time together in Atlanta, so hopefully it's a nice change to be out here together in L.A. and to feel some of the impacts of the work that you've been doing together on your flight over here on Delta. So thanks for joining us, first of all.
Yes, good to be here.
Good, so let's fly right into it. Ravi and Cesar, let's come straight to you. I mean, the aviation sector has seen some really rapid transformation in the span of just a few years. Can you set the scene a little bit on how Delta has transitioned in the wake of COVID, and where do the priorities and transformation opportunities now lie for Delta?
Yeah, absolutely, and thank you for the question, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. For those of you who maybe are close to Delta, you might know that our aspiration is to connect. So everything we do as an airline is to connect, and we really believe digital is that thread that connects our entire organization. It connects employees, it connects customers, it connects the operation. So it really runs through everything we do together. Going to your question, customer expectations keep evolving. So obviously, over the last few years, those expectations evolved, and we are laser-focused on creating some of those premium experiences at a scale to service all the customers that come to us. Just to set the scene, we have made great strides on our digital strategy. If you think, if Delta were an e-commerce retailer, we would be top 10 in the US. So that is an impressive statistic right there. We also have an award-winning app, and we have received numerous accolades. But we think there's a huge opportunity. We think the opportunity is really large. And that opportunity is to work end-to-end to really connect that customer experience from the time they come to us to purchase to the time they fly. And that's where Sapien came in. Ravi, want to add to that?
Yeah, to add to that, my background is more on the operating side, and as we think through serving our customer and some of the things that Cesar said about the connected experience and really focusing on the product that we have out there for our customer, we can't forget that reliability is a core mission of ours as well. So what we do is we do a lot of investment in the background on things that matter to the customer but that they don't necessarily need to know day in and day out. And some of those things in our space are really around how do we optimize the operation. We've done a lot of investment in decision science capabilities. Here lately, there's been a lot of crew work, a lot of maintenance work. As you think of the airline and you think of the things that Cesar's talking about scale from a consumer perspective, there's that same level of scale from an operational perspective, right? The thousands of flights that we operate every day, the complexity in the airspace system, those things are not going away, right? Some of the different constraints that we have may move around. And as we think of how we evolve technology, we have the right things that we're doing, but how do you focus that energy into the specific constraints that you need to solve for today? And how do you become nimble and pivot towards that? And that's some of the work that we've done with Sapien is really around organizing our priorities and really forming an operating model in terms of how we would execute against that in a manner that has rapid deployment but also long-term value.
Good. So leading into that, Dan, bring you in here. So maybe tell us a little bit more about Publicis Sapien, what you guys do, and how you fit into the story.
Yeah, sure. So Publicis Sapien is a digital business transformation company. That is the one thing we do, and that is transforming businesses with digital. So you may ask, what does that mean exactly? And I'll demystify that a little bit here. So Delta actually came to us, and they had an ambition to transform the way that they were engaging with customers. And I thought about it actually on the way here. It's like I spend as much time looking up on the airplane as I did looking down at the app, right? And so at least half, if not more, of my experience is what I see digitally, right? And the ambition was to take advantage and work more like a digital native, despite being a large or established airline, in the way that they create amazing experiences for customers and for their employees. And at Sapien, we use an acronym for digital. And a lot of people think digital is just technology, which is just one part of it. It's a big part of it, but it's just one part of it. We use an acronym, SPEED, which stands for strategy, product, like digital product, experience, engineering, and data. And those are the five elements of how we organize. And they're basically the five elements that you need to have a successful digital transformation. And as we'll talk about, those are sort of the capabilities that we all work together to nurture to create these great customer and employee experiences.
Very good. So to all of you then, how have you been working together across functions to bring this vision to life? And were there specific digital enablers that you used to remove traditional challenges?
Yeah, so we started with a strategy. I'm a strategist, so that's where we began. And it was the digital business transformation strategy that we developed. And when we did that, we talked a lot about the what and the how of digital. And so the what of digital were the capabilities that not just Delta, but any organization that is looking to go through this journey, and it's definitely a long journey, needs to nurture. So those were things like developing stronger digital product management practices or things around customer data, basically getting your house in order for all the digital challenges that you know about today, but also the ones that you don't know about that are coming in the future. And then we talked about the how, which is how you actually pull those things together to work differently. So this operating model is cross-functional in two ways. One way, it pulls across departments, so it doesn't matter if you're in ops, right, or if you're in IT or you're in revenue management, right, if there's a component of the customer's journey that you want to solve for with digital, you organize around it. And so it's cross-functional in that way. It's also pulling those different speed capabilities together. And so some of the teams that we then worked together to set up, they were parts of the business that had never worked together before, put a strategist with an architect and have them work in a really quick iterative manner to build something for our customer.
Very good. Cesar, anything to add to that?
Yeah, so I'd love to share with this group one of my favorite examples of how we work together to make this vision that we had a reality. And it's my favorite example for a few reasons, but the main one is that it shows our commitment to make travel right for everyone. And the issue which we were working on was customers who come to us and bring in their own assistive device. And what was happening is that oftentimes these customers would come to the airport and our people in the front line were not prepared to be able to anticipate that need and carry that equipment in a way that made that experience to the level that we want as part of being a passenger and a customer on Delta. To make it a little bit more complicated, depending on the size of that equipment or the construction of that equipment and the aircraft that that passenger was going to fly, that equipment might or might not fit properly into that plane. And that's a really poor experience for that customer. And over the years, we have made big investments on making travel right for people with different needs. But this was something that we understood clearly that we couldn't solve by just fixing it at the airport or just fixing it at the call center or on the website. We needed to make sure we had that end-to-end vision and end-to-end view on what we needed to do to make it right. And it was a really great experience. One, we built this team that represented the customer, represented the enterprise, not a division, to Dan's point. And the team got really invested on moving that agenda forward and making a difference. Like Paul Revere, ringing the bell. But that's part of the job, and you change because it's valuable. So a lot of it, even what I personally learned, is even, I mean, you're hearing us all talk about change management in one form or another. It's being even clearer up front, like, are you ready? Do you have your backpack set? Are you ready to do the ultramarathon? This is where we're going. To the credit, these guys are sick of hearing me talk about this, but two things to Delta's credit that I think they continue to do really well. One, they have just an amazing culture and an inclusive culture and a want to make these things work, which is amazing and beyond what I've seen at any other organizations. And then the other thing is their sponge is said less nicely, geeks, and they love learning, right? And just the ability and the eagerness to learn these things and internalize them and act on them, right? Like, they came with a learning mindset, and now they can probably teach us everything at this point.
Okay, so last question from me. With so much change that's occurred, where do you see the future of the industry now leading? Cesar, maybe you could kick off with that one. Big question.
Yeah, that's a big question. I tell you, for us as a company, we really look forward to travel not being a stressor but being something people look forward to. And I'm really excited for what it means for customers. I'm really excited for what it means for our people. I've never seen a survey or a customer study that makes the customer be really excited about our people typing the right command on the screen. They're really excited because they got on time, they engaged with our employees. Our frontline actually offered a great experience to that customer. So enabling our people to do that, what they do best, is what really, really excites me, and I believe we're going to get to that point if we continue with the work.
Javid, I think you were talking a little bit about the industry at large and these learnings, aren't you? And we're going to obviously give a bit of a sneak preview now that we're going to relaunch the FTE Digital Innovation and Startup Hub tomorrow, and we really want that to be a forum where digital leaders across the industry can come together to learn from each other about how they're approaching digital and really focusing in on AI and robotics and IoT, and that's something we want to try and help facilitate, that knowledge sharing across the industry with great projects like this, so we can try and move everybody along with those learnings at speed. So we're going to try and help with that ourselves, but thank you for obviously sharing what you've done today. Is there time for one last question if someone has it? Okay, let us know where you're from.
Asha Jacob, I represent Tata Consultancy Services, so thank you for a very insightful discussion from the panel. My question is very similar to what Javed asked as well. So Ravi, you said that memorable experiences for the passenger would start with the airline and be created as well, but it's not just about the airline. So from a passenger's perspective, there's a lot that they go through at the airport and everywhere else as well. So what kind of collaboration is happening across airports, airlines, and ground handling agents?
Yep, we do a lot of collaboration with various government agencies, local municipalities. We have a very open dialogue, at least at all of our hubs, and that is a very important part of this process, right? Because as you think of here in the U.S., TSA, even just de-icing operations, those kinds of things, you can't really do anything at an airport by yourself, right? Even at other places, you still have to talk to other airlines, right? Because there's no worse thing than one airline gridlocking an airport, right? It breaks the system for everyone and all of our customers lose, right? So going back to this other question, there are areas in the industry where we work together with a lot of other players in the field, some government, some not, and I think that is something that we have to continue to foster, right? And our leaders at Delta are very open to that. They understand the relationships. They understand the constraints that others may be under, right? If it's a government entity, it might just be funding or staffing or things like that. And we've worked with them. We apply some of our knowledge. They give us some of their knowledge, and we collaborate in a manner that's constructive for all because more times than not, we're all on the same team on that, right? Nobody at, for example, TSA is saying, I love long lines. Nobody at an airline is saying that. No customer is saying that. So it actually works well for us because we all have the same objective. We want a happy customer because remember, the airport is also its own entity, right? Even here in L.A., right? They look at their airport as their product, as their business, and they say, how can I make my experience at my airport even better, right? Because I'm competing with the other airport, right, over there. So I think we do that a lot. We do that well, and we're going to continue that.
Yeah, to build on that, the operating model facilitates some of that engagement with outside entities because when you jump into one of these teams, you're not there to represent your division. You're there to represent the enterprise or a capability and think about the problem end-to-end. And end-to-end might mean physical experience in an airport, engagement with a specific government agency or vendor. A great example of that that is live is our launch of Digital ID in a couple airports right now where customers can go through an expedited security line, and that involves collaboration with the airports and with the government in order to validate the process and to make sure that worked properly. So that is definitely a team sport, to Ravi's point, and we ask our teams to be very, very engaged in that.
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today and sharing that. It really is a fantastic contribution. Let's give them a warm round of applause as they leave the stage.