Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) chief operating officer Mike Spanos is leaving the company at the end of this month after spending just over a year in the job.
The departure is effective as of August 31, 2024.
Spanos joined the airlines in 2023 with no aviation experience. His previous stints include leadership roles at PepsiCo and CEO of amusement-park chain Six Flags.
In a company memo seen by the Wall Street Journal, chief executive Ed Bastian said that Spanos had approached him earlier this summer and said he was considering other opportunities. The airline does not currently plan to replace Spanos, the WSJ report added.
John Laughter and Allison Ausband, two executives who had worked under Spanos, will now report directly to the CEO. Laughter manages key parts of the airline’s operation such as flights and maintenance, while Ausband oversees the customer experience.
In the memo, Bastian praised Spanos for helping to maintain the airline’s leading position and said the carrier had seen “significant reductions in injuries” among workers in the first half of this year compared with last year.
The departure comes around a month after the airline faced an operational meltdown as a result of the CrowdStrike tech outage, which led to the cancellation of 7,000 flights over five days and cost the company an estimated $500M.
