Delta Plans $1.6 Billion Payout to Employees as Profit-Sharing Bonus

The Atlanta-based carrier says it’s giving more than a billion and a half dollars in profit sharing to it’s 90,000 employees this year.

What We Know:

  • Employees will share a record $1.6 billion profit-sharing payout on February 14. For the average employee, that will be equivalent to about 2 months of pay according to Delta CEO, Ed Bastian. Delta’s payout was $1.3 billion last year and $1.1 billion in 2018 and 2017.
  • This will mark the sixth year in a row that the airline has paid out more than $1 billion in profit sharing payments.
  • During a Cobb Chamber event held Monday at the Roxy Theatre, Bastian said “For years, I was beaten up by Wall Street. They thought the profits were theirs, and why are you giving the profits away to the employees?”
  • Bastian hailed the company’s annual performance as “the best in Delta’s history operationally, financially and for our customers” and praised the airline’s more than 80,000 workers for their “commitment to bringing best-in-class travel experiences to our 200 million customers”.
  • For this year’s payout, the Atlanta based company had already accrued nearly $1.3 billion toward it’s profit sharing payout in the first three quarters of 2019. Lower fuel prices helped Delta save more than $300 million, and unlike key rivals, Delta didn’t get caught up in the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max- it doesn’t own any of the planes.
  • The airline says it will hire about 7,000 people in 2020 and hopes to add another 25,000 over the next three to four years.

If you don’t work for Delta, this news may interest you in becoming one of the 32,000 people the airline plans to hire.