ATLANTA, May 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On a cold winter
evening in January 2007, Delta Air
Lines (NYSE: DAL) employees gathered outside of Hartsfield-Jackson
Atlanta International Airport as the airline illuminated its iconic
'Fly Delta Jets' sign for the first time in years as the airline
worked through bankruptcy.
"It was the same day that we found out that the creditors were
going to reject the US [Airways] hostile takeover and stay with
Delta and invest in the people of Delta to let us out of the
bankruptcy," said Ed Bastian, who
officially became Delta's CEO on Monday. "We relit the light, we
celebrated our freedom, and it was a great evening."
The re-illumination of the iconic sign was a simple but symbolic
gesture that lives on in the memories of Delta people, who bore
scars of bankruptcy and a hostile takeover attempt but who bear
even more pride for their airline.
Now, the story will live on in the archives at the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C., as
Delta, an airline that has forged millions of connections around
the world, is partnering with StoryCorps, a nonprofit organization
whose mission, similarly, is to build human connections by
preserving and sharing remarkable stories.
"In our deep history of preserving human stories, Delta is one
of the few brands mentioned organically by the people we recorded,"
said Dave Isay, Founder of
StoryCorps. "It's a testament to the impact the Delta culture and
its travel experience can have on our society. We are so excited to
be working together and have high hopes for the stories that come
out of this partnership."
Delta and StoryCorps kicked off the first phase of the
partnership in April, when StoryCorps' MobileBooth came to Delta's
General Offices in Atlanta to
record Delta employees' personal accounts reflecting the airline's
culture, mission and values. The partnership will expand to include
stories from Delta customers, and Delta will also share StoryCorps'
larger collection of interviews in-flight through Delta Studio.
"We share with StoryCorps a mission to build human connections
around the world and are excited to further our mission by sharing
employee and customer stories through the StoryCorps lens as well
as sharing stories with our 180 million annual customers in-flight
through Delta Studio," said Julieta
McCurry, Delta's Director – Marketing Communications. "We
never take for granted the distinct privilege we have of being part
of the formative, meaningful moments in the lives of our employees
and customers, and with gratitude to them, we share these intimate
interviews that show who we are and the culture and values for
which we so proudly stand."
The first interview is a conversation between Bastian and
Glen Hauenstein, who also assumed
his role as Delta's President on Monday. Their conversation
reflects the paths that led them to Delta, what it took to 'breathe
new life' into the airline during its darkest hour, and the
transformative career moments that have helped shape the airline
Delta is today.
From the illumination of the Fly Delta Jets sign, to Delta's
annual breast cancer survivor flight, stories of Delta are many.
The StoryCorps interviews tell stories of triumph and tragedy, of
love, life and loss – from Assi and Marco, who met while sitting
next to each other on a Delta flight and later married, to Tim and
Ron, who forged a bond through their grief over the loss of their
children and now help others at Delta who have experienced the loss
of a child. Listeners will meet Andrea, who made a promise to
herself that she would become a Delta pilot and is now an MD-88
Captain, and Brian, who reveres and cares for fallen service
members during their final journeys home as the leader of Delta's
Honor Guard.
Five interviews will be shared this week as Delta marks the
beginning of a new chapter with Bastian's transition to CEO. After
the first week, interviews will be shared every Tuesday throughout
the summer on Delta News Hub.
About Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines serves nearly 180 million customers each year.
In 2016, Delta was named to Fortune's top 50 Most Admired Companies
in addition to being named the most admired airline for the fifth
time in six years. Additionally, Delta has ranked No.1 in the
Business Travel News Annual Airline survey for an unprecedented
five consecutive years. With an industry-leading global network,
Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 330
destinations in 61 countries on six continents. Headquartered in
Atlanta, Delta employs nearly
80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more
than 800 aircraft. The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam
global alliance and participates in the industry's leading
transatlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia
as well as a joint venture with Virgin Atlantic. Including its
worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than
15,000 daily flights, with key hubs and markets including
Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St.
Paul, New York-JFK and LaGuardia, London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake
City, Seattle and Tokyo-Narita. Delta has invested billions of
dollars in airport facilities, global products and services, and
technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the
ground. Additional information is available on the Delta News Hub,
as well as delta.com, Twitter @DeltaNewsHub, Google.com/+Delta,
Facebook.com/delta and Delta's blog takingoff.delta.com.
About StoryCorps
Founded in 2003 by MacArthur Fellow Dave Isay, the nonprofit
organization StoryCorps has given a quarter of a million
Americans the chance to record interviews about their lives, pass
wisdom from one generation to the next, and leave a legacy for the
future. It is the largest single collection of human voices ever
gathered.
Recording a StoryCorps interview couldn't be easier: You
invite a loved one, or anyone else you chose, to one of the
StoryCorps recording sites. There you're met by a trained
facilitator who greets you and explains the interview process.
You're then brought into a quiet recording room and
seated across from your interview partner, each of you in
front of a microphone. The facilitator hits "record," and you
share a forty-minute conversation. At the end of the session,
you walk away with a copy of the interview, and a digital file goes
to the Library of Congress, where it will be preserved for
generations to come. Someday your great-great-great-grandchildren
will be able to meet your grandfather, your mother, your
best friend, or whomever it is you chose to honor with a
StoryCorps interview.
With the 2015 TED Prize awarded to Dave
Isay, StoryCorps has also launched an app that puts the
StoryCorps experience entirely in the hands of users and enables
anyone, anywhere to record meaningful conversations with another
person. Uploaded interviews are preserved at the Library of
Congress and on the website StoryCorps.me.
StoryCorps shares edited excerpts of the stories we record
through popular weekly NPR broadcasts, animated shorts, digital
platforms, and best-selling books. These powerful stories
illustrate our shared humanity and show how much more we share
in common than divides us.
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SOURCE Delta Air Lines