At a star-studded event at Sphere in Las Vegas, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian kicked off the new year with a celebration of the company's past and a vision for its future — grounded in innovation and sustainability.
Delta is the oldest operating airline in the U.S., with 100 years in business, and at this event during the Consumer Electronics Show, it announced its plans for the next 100 years — including electric air taxis, sustainable aviation fuel that powers planes with the equivalent of cooking oil, new flight patterns and planes that mimic birds to increase fuel efficiency, and even luggage made from upcycled airplane parts.
The Cool Down attended the keynote event and also spoke to Delta's chief sustainability officer, Amelia DeLuca, for a deep dive into what the airline has in store.
"I think it's exciting that when you think about the next hundred years, sustainability will be woven into every decision that we make," DeLuca told The Cool Down. "From designing new aircraft to how we operate, [we] will consider sustainability — we know that's the real unlock for the next hundred years."
🚁Electric taxis coming soon
In an immersive, futuristic video, Delta showcased its new "concierge" AI service by helping a fictional character, Eve, get ready for her flight.
"Time in traffic is 90 minutes, would you like to request a Joby?" the concierge asks Eve as she packs her bag in her hotel room. "Yes, please," she responds.
The video shows an electric helicopter landing on the roof of the hotel and transporting her to the airport in minutes, thanks to the airline's partnership with Joby, a new breed of all-electric, vertical takeoff and landing transportation that could get travelers to the airport in a fraction of the time it takes when driving on congested roads.
"Joby is going to transform how we move through the world," Bastian told the crowd. "And it's not a distant experience — it could be a reality in the next few years." Joby completed its first test flight in New York this year, and DeLuca said they're "one to two years away until they're actually flying" in places like New York and Los Angeles.
In a mutually exclusive deal, Delta invested an initial $60 million in Joby in 2022, with a total investment of up to $200 million possible if milestones are met.
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"Electric vertical takeoff and landing is an exciting value proposition," DeLuca told TCD. "It's zero emissions. But more than that, it is a huge time-saver, which is incredible. I used to live in New York, so I can just think about how nice it would have been to know you could get to the airport in 10 minutes instead of potentially an hour-and-a-half."
But will it only be for high-end customers?
"The ambition is to get that price point into probably an Uber Black type of a space," DeLuca said. "So it's still a little bit of an elevated premium, but more accessible than perhaps helicopters of today — but obviously that'll take some time to get there."
🪽Learning from the birds
Delta's sustainability ambitions have three pillars, DeLuca said: "What we fly, how we fly, and the fuel we use."
On the question of what the company flies, the first step is making its planes and operations more fuel-efficient to reduce the amount of fuel it has to use.
"The most critical thing we can do as an airline industry right now is to try to improve fuel efficiency," DeLuca said. "Because not only does that help our bottom line today … it also means we need less SAF [sustainable aviation fuel] in the future when SAF does scale."
The company showcased its partnership with Airbus' UpNext innovation lab, where teams are developing new planes that Airbus' chief sustainability officer, Julie Kitcher, said will reduce costs and carbon pollution by 25%.
Delta is also finding inspiration from nature, testing airplane wings that change shape while in flight to reduce fuel pollution, as well as trying a new flying technique called fello'fly which mimics the "V" formation of migrating geese. By pairing flights, the first plane creates an uplift that drives fuel efficiency for the following aircraft.
"Nature can provide a lot of options for how we can fly more efficiently," DeLuca said, adding that Delta is also piloting a product called a "Finlet" that works like a shark's fin on the back of an aircraft. "They do things all the time to try to help improve their speed and reduce drag," DeLuca said, so why not mimic that efficiency for planes?
✈️ Improving 'how we fly'
Over 90% of Delta's carbon pollution comes from jet fuel, so investing in sustainable aviation fuel is one of the airline's top priorities, DeLuca told us in an interview last year.
But while some planes — like those flying from California — already use some SAF, there's a lot of work to be done to create more supply.
So, how's it going?
DeLuca told us Delta used four times as much SAF in 2024 as it did in 2023: "That … improvement shows the kind of exponential growth that we're seeing from the industry, which is positive, but it's still so small in the grand scheme of things."
Delta is seeing some "green shoots" though, especially by creating an SAF hub in Minnesota. "2025 is going to be a banner year because it's the first year we'll start to blend SAF in Minnesota, and also we should hopefully be announcing some new producers as well," DeLuca said.
🧳 Luggage made of airplanes
Delta also showed a prototype of an upcycled suitcase — the world's first aluminum bag made from the aircraft skin of retired Delta jets.
"People are very interested in what happens to an airplane at the end of its life, especially after the pandemic when we and the industry parked and retired so many of them," said DeLuca.
"We're going to use the suitcases to tell the story — this suitcase has traveled all over the world in the form of an airplane, and now it can be your very own suitcase."
✈️ The future of air travel is … sustainable
The bottom line, DeLuca said, is that Delta's sustainability focus isn't just about doing the right thing — it's about growing the business.
"If we get this right, which we will, we make decisions focused on making sure it's good for our business, it's good for the planet, and it's doing the right thing for the people that we serve and connecting the world better," she said. "So it should, in theory, reduce our cost structure because we're going to unlock fuels that are actually lower cost and much less volatile."
"It should unlock new airplanes of the future that can go two times as far potentially — [they] can be smaller, but maybe more efficient. All of that is going to benefit society."
"This is the beginning of a new era of travel," said Bastian.
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