On New Year’s Day 2016, Delta Air Lines began a remarkable streak: the airline did not cancel a single mainline flight. By Sunday, Nov. 6, Delta had reached 200 consecutive days without a cancellation, leaving just over two months in the year.
What once seemed unlikely to Delta leaders has become a notable achievement. The milestone reinforces the carrier’s post-merger Keep Climbing campaign promise to “build a better airline, not just a bigger one,” and underscores the airline’s focus on dependable service.
Delta has emphasized reliability to its customers through a series of social media videos and other communications, highlighting operational improvements that made the streak possible.
“Setting records like this has everything to do with our 80,000 dedicated employees, for whom continuous improvement is in their DNA,” said Dave Holtz, senior vice president of operations and the customer center at Delta Air Lines. “We’re committed to making this airline great for our global customers and creating the best-run airline in the business. Industry-leading operational performance is just part of that equation.”
To understand how far the airline has come, consider the trend over recent years. In 2010, Delta recorded no cancel-free days; in 2011 that number rose to 10, and by 2015 it reached 161 cancel-free days. The 200-day milestone occurred on the 311th day of 2016, by which time Delta had carried more than 157 million passengers on roughly 910,000 mainline flights. With several weeks still remaining in the year, the airline had additional opportunity to extend its streak.