Delta Air Lines is losing its incumbent chief operations officer just over a year after he took the job and just weeks after the Atlanta-based airline suffered an embarrassing and incredibly costly operational breakdown caused by CrowdStrike’s global IT outage.
In an internal memo, CEO Ed Bastian informed employees that Mike Spanos would leave the airline on August 31. The airline stressed, however, that Spanos’ departure had nothing to do with the CrowdStrike debacle.
Although he has only held the position since June 12, 2023, Spanos Bastian apparently told earlier this summer that he was looking for new opportunities and intends to leave Delta in the not-too-distant future.
Spanos held various leadership positions at PepsiCo for over 25 years and was most recently president and CEO of Six Flags Entertainment, where he led the digital transformation of the legendary amusement park chain, according to Delta.
Despite having no experience in the aviation or airline industry, Spanos was tasked with integrating several departments, including Delta’s now closely monitored technology division.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this month, Delta said the CrowdStrike outage and resulting operational disruption will cost the airline approximately $500 million.
About $380 million of that bill will be spent on refunds to customers and compensation in the form of cash and SkyMiles payments. In addition, the airline must raise another $170 million for non-fuel-related expenses, such as reimbursing passengers and crew for hotel stays and other expenses.
The losses would have been even higher if the airline had not saved about $50 million in fuel costs – and that was over a period of nearly a week in which it had to ground thousands of flights because it had lost track of the locations of its pilots and flight attendants.
Delta has clearly placed blame for the operational problems on CrowdStrike and Microsoft, whose operating systems were affected by the flaw. However, both companies hit back, accusing Delta of failing to keep its technology up to date.
In fact, the system that has caused most of Delta’s problems – the crew planning and tracking program – does not use a Microsoft operating system, but probably an outdated IBM system.
Spanos’ role will not be directly replaced. Instead, Chief Customer Experience Officer Allison Ausband and EVP and Chief of Operations John Laughter will now report directly to Bastian.
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