When new pilots join Delta Air Lines, the moment they receive their pilot “wings” to pin to their uniforms is a major milestone.
This ceremony is “one of the most important nights of their careers,” said Laura Lee Kong, who manages the airline’s career pathway program.
It usually happens about two weeks into new first officers’ training as they wrap up classroom learning in Atlanta and transition to six weeks of technical training in simulators across the country.
But back in 2022, as air travel came roaring back after COVID-19 and airlines scrambled to hire new pilots, Delta had a problem: the overwhelmed post-pandemic supply chain could not keep up with their new pilot influx.
Shipments of new wings from a Chinese supplier were stuck in shipping containers trying to get into U.S. ports. Pilots “were coming here,” Lee Kong recalled, “and we were like, ‘We don’t have wings for them.’”
The company held one wing ceremony without actual wings to give out in 2022, she said.
But once Delta’s existing pilots found out about that, they quickly came up with their own solution on social media: those who had already upgraded to captain could donate their old first officer wings to the new hires.
Someone called Lee Kong, who was then working in employee engagement, and asked if she could make the idea a reality.
“So then we put it out there: ‘If you want to donate your wings, send them to me,’” she said.
And the boxes started arriving.
“My desk was piled up with boxes from pilots that were just sending them in, so that their fellow pilots would come in and have something to leave with.”
“And the part that we weren’t expecting is that they started writing notes. This is not something we asked for,” she said.
Within the first month they had collected 1,000 sets of wings, she said, many with notes attached wishing new pilots well, reflecting on what the wings had brought that pilot in their career and life.
Eventually Delta formalized the program as “legacy wings” and set up about a dozen donation boxes in chief pilot offices across the airline’s eight bases and at major pilot events.
They’ve given out nearly 3,000 so far.
While the supply chain for new wings has since normalized, and some pilot classes do receive new wings, Lee Kong said they are constantly collecting donations and have gathered about 500 to give all incoming pilots in Delta’s centennial year “legacy wings.”
‘Passing of the torch’
While some pilots donate their first officer wings to an unknown new pilot, others will specifically give their wings to someone they know.
Sean Allen, a Delta first officer, is one such Delta pilot who donated his wings deliberately this week at a ceremony at the Delta Flight Museum.
Allen passed his first set of Delta wings down to Jarred Lundy, his mentee and a Delta pilot trainee.
The two had flown together at Endeavor Air, Delta’s regional carrier and subsidiary, before Allen left a few years ago for Delta.
Now Lundy has followed Allen to the Atlanta-based airline.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Both men had harbored childhood dreams of flying: Allen as a 4-year-old from Jamaica taking his first flight, when the pilot let him into the cockpit, and Lundy as an Atlanta native who grew up watching planes fly over his parents’ house and at 14 joined a Delta-backed summer camp designed to inspire budding aviation careers.
Allen said he was quickly impressed by Lundy in the Endeavor cockpits they shared.
“I’m watching this kid, and I’m seeing myself in him, and I’m also seeing whom I would aspire to be in terms of his professionalism and knowledge, enthusiasm, customer service, all of it,” Allen told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He encouraged Lundy to follow him to Delta, and even though Allen himself is still a first officer, he wanted to take part in the legacy wings program because of Lundy.
“I found it to be a really inspiring program, because it’s also a symbolic passing of the torch,” he said. “These were my first Delta wings I could have had framed, but I’m passing it on.”
Lundy told the AJC the wing ceremony was a “highlight” of his career so far.
And for Allen to pass on his wings specifically to Lundy? “It’s big.”
“For Sean to consider me and to give his wings to me, means a lot to me. It’s knowing that he believes in me enough to put his name behind me.”
Lee Kong said Delta is continuing the program so long as pilots keep donating.
And three years in, what they’re noticing is that the pilots who previously received legacy wings are their biggest donors.
“We’re getting legacy wings, which are the legacy wings that (pilots) received from someone else,” she said.
So will Lundy pass his first officer wings along someday? “I’ll definitely want to pay it forward,” he said.
“Reach my hand out to the next person so they can reach their dreams and do their best.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
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