‘I think it’s a mistake’: Delta CEO Ed Bastian refuses to call it ‘artificial intelligence’ because it scares people

Ed Bastian has a bone to pick with Silicon Valley’s marketing department.

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“I think it’s a mistake to call anything artificial,” the Delta Air Lines CEO told Fortune in a wide-ranging conversation, backstage at Great Place to Work’s For All Summit in Las Vegas. “You want to scare people? Tell them that artificial intelligence is coming for you.” Bastian said he refuses to use the term inside Delta, preferring instead to call it “augmented intelligence” — a framing he argues is more honest about what the technology actually does. “I want our employees to see it as a tool to enable them to do their jobs better, not to replace them, but to enhance them.”

The distinction matters in practice, Bastian argued, saying Delta has no intention of using AI as a headcount-reduction tool. “At the end of the day, we know those job skills are going to change, as it always has. But one of the things with AI is it’s changing more rapidly than people anticipate. And you’ve got a lot of hype around it.” We need to bring the pressure down, he said.

Where automation frees up Delta workers from gate phones or reservation desks, he said, those people are getting redeployed to serve customers more directly. “To the extent there’s less need for more people at a gate or more people on a phone, we’ll redeploy those people to better serve customers even more,” he said, adding that Delta has a “higher calling” to provide the best service and the best care, and strive to do it better, even against a punishing backdrop for air travel of late.

Fuel prices loom over business

Telling Fortune and Great Place to Work CEO Michael Bush onstage that “pressure is a privilege,” Bastian noted that fuel prices can double in 30 days, as they just have. Wars can break out. Geopolitical shocks — the kind now roiling global markets, from trade disputes to regional conflicts — ripple immediately into airline demand and costs. “Just this year, look at everything that’s happened,” Bastian said. “Fuel prices spiking, wars going on, geopolitics at somewhat of a peak.” Bastian said Delta’s demand set is still “pretty strong” and “customers are still traveling,” but surging fuel prices mean pricing can’t cover the cost of carrying them, even for Delta, the most profitable airline in the business.

He reeled off the great names of air travel that have gone extinct, from Pan Am to TWA to Hughes. Speaking a day ahead of a reported $500 million rescue package for Spirit Airlines, struggling to exit bankruptcy, Bastian said he sees structural change coming for airlines over the next six to 12 months as carriers that compete purely on low price — and haven’t returned their cost of capital in years — face the consequences of the current fuel environment. “Carriers are going to have to reorganize in order to survive,” he said.

Bastian’s obsession is making sure that Delta can absorb the next shock, whatever form it takes. He recalled that he often describes the airline in two words: “differentiated and durable,” and was asked about similarities to what Jamie Dimon calls the “fortress balance sheet” in his management of JPMorgan. “I use that same language, a fortress balance sheet,” Bastian said, but he pointed out that this mentality has existed in financial institutions for quite a few years, while “airlines have not been known for them. This is, to me, is kind of the last frontier of change that Delta has to make.”

The data behind the culture

That Delta has earned a degree of credibility with its workforce that most institutions envy right now still genuinely surprises its CEO. Delta just cracked the top 10 on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list, landing at No. 9 — its seventh consecutive year on the list and the only commercial airline to appear. Great Place to Work surveys found 88% of Delta employees say it’s a great place to work. Delta also ranks No. 11 on Fortune‘s World’s Most Admired Companies list for the 13th consecutive year — not just the top airline, but competing against the world’s most admired brands in every industry.

In conversation with Bush onstage at the summit, Bastian paused to stress that Delta is not just the world’s largest and most profitable airline, but also most beloved by its customers. Being on the Great Place to Work list and the Most Admired List tells Bastian, he said, “that we’re making progress on [our] mission.” At the same time, he stressed that only being number nine is below his standards. “I love it, but I’m not – I’m not happy.”

Bastian also said he’s frankly surprised that Delta continues to rank so highly, given the turbulence of the COVID and post-pandemic era. Over the last five years, he noted, Delta has brought in somewhere between 30% and 40% new employees — an enormous cultural stress test for a 100-year-old company. “I’m surprised — slash impressed — with our ability to continue moving up the levels of a great place to work, given that we’ve had such a large influx of new tale