Delta Air Lines CEO to kick off airline's 100th anniversary at Sphere during CES

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian is launching the company’s centennial year not in Atlanta, but at a Las Vegas tech conference — alongside Lenny Kravitz.

Bastian’s third appearance at CES next month, which is billed as “the most powerful tech event in the world,” is deliberate, Tim Mapes, Delta’s chief communications officer, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Why would an airline be at CES? That’s exactly the point,” he said. Delta is, in fact, the only airline featured at the conference.

Bastian’s splashy keynote at Vegas’ Sphere makes sense for many reasons, including its early January timing, the scale of an event that drew nearly 140,000 last year, as well as the cachet of the tech world and a higher-income audience Delta has been targeting. Wall Street and investors pay attention to it too, Mapes acknowledged.

But it also dovetails with Delta’s leading strategy heading into its 100th year: to showcase “humanity” and place itself alongside some of the world’s largest consumer brands and platforms.

“Let’s put the ‘C’ back in CES,” Mapes said of the conference formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show. “Our interest is not in comparing ourselves to other airlines. It’s comparing ourselves to other global consumer brands known to be world class.”

Delta is indeed “trying to play in the big league and not just think of themselves as an airline,” said Ram Chellappa, a professor of information systems and operations management at Emory University who studies airlines.

That league includes the likes of Amazon and Apple that have created massive platforms that touch many aspects of consumers’ lives, rather than simply selling books, computers or, in Delta’s case, airline tickets.

To get there, Chellappa explains, the company wants to leverage technology and AI to customize a “holistic experience” beyond just flying you from place to place. He points to the company’s wildly lucrative American Express cards, as well as deals with the likes of Starbucks, Hertz and Lyft, which give SkyMiles members bonus perks and link rewards accounts.

The goal, he says, is that Delta becomes the platform by which customers access everything else, just like Amazon is a marketplace where many shoppers access other vendors. “If they think of themselves as sort of this all-purveying entity that covers all aspects of a consumer’s movement, then they’re hoping everything happens through them.”

On a Delta plane, that already looks like allowing a SkyMiles member to log into a personal dashboard on their in-flight screen and get offers for services like Walmart+ and Paramount+ via in-flight Wi-Fi.

The company has pursued a strategy of increased customization over the past 15 years, allowing each traveler to choose a more specific experience and price point, like Delta Premium Select or Basic Economy.

The aviation business, Mapes argues, “can be transcended by this beloved consumer brand” that people choose over competitors.

“It isn’t about price solely the way it maybe was 15-20 years ago,” he added. “It’s about your relationship with Delta.”

Delta’s strategy is innovative, Chellappa says, and especially surprising coming from a nearly 100-year-old brand.

But with it comes a warning for regulators, just as the government has had to keep an eye on Amazon and Apple, to watch for “new and interesting dependencies” that could create, Chellappa said.

Indeed, the Department of Transportation this fall announced a review of rewards programs at the country’s four largest airlines — including Delta — for “potential unfair, deceptive, or anticompetitive practices.”

At the January keynote in Las Vegas, Mapes promises yet-unnamed “major special guests,” announcements and an experience “befitting of Delta marking the next 100 years of aviation.” But as the company announced Thursday, it will also feature perks for SkyMiles members in attendance, including swag, expedited entry and a special lounge.

“We know Delta has the vision to continue disrupting how we travel by leaning into technology,” said Gary Shapiro, CEO of CES’ organizer, the Consumer Technology Association in a statement.

“I can’t wait to see how they bring that to life at Sphere.”