Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson is excited about the company’s trajectory for 2015, including customer engagement and customer satisfaction levels.
During Delta’s first-quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday, Anderson reported that the company registered the best first quarter ever as far as producing solid top line growth, margin expansion, and substantial free cash flow.
“We continue to run by far the industry’s best operation,” Anderson said, according to Seeking Alpha. “In the March quarter, we delivered 98.6 completion factor that had a lot of tough weather days in it, but we did have 25 days with zero mainline cancellations. Our mainline on-time rate improved 3.1 points to 83.4%. This operational performance is contributing to solid increases in customer satisfaction. We have achieved all-time highs in our Net Promoter scores and our customer complain rate has decreased by 23% so far this year. These outstanding results were made possible by the dedication of our employees who work hard every 
day to provide an industry-leading customer experience and outstanding returns to our shareholders.”
Delta’s domestic business is performing very well and demand is solid, Anderson noted.
“Our network and product investments, combined with the world-class customer service of our employees, have widened our domestic revenue premium to the industry which currently stands at 115%,” he explained. “We will continue to be disciplined with our domestic capacity levels, with our domestic growth driven by higher gauge in fewer total airplanes which will cause us to improve efficiency and drive higher operating margins.”
Delta’s long-term focus is on building a durable business model, not just through margin expansion efforts, but also by taking risk out of the enterprise.
“We have the best labor relations in the industry with a strong paper performance culture and a history of working collaboratively with all of our employees,” Anderson said. “We are working through our updated long-term plan now. We’ll take the plan to our Board at the end of this month. Part of that work includes developing the next set of metrics that will guide the business, including the optimal long-term debt target and level of shareholder returns for the company. We believe this plan will give long-term equity holders very clear guidance on our future and what they can expect from our cash flows and it will show that Delta has earned a place among the top tier S&P 100 companies.”