Delta Air Lines said Friday that its chief operating officer will leave the company next week after a little more than a year in the airline business to take another job.
The departure of Michael Spanos comes a few weeks after Delta canceled thousands of flights during a botched recovery from a global technology outage,
Spanos spent most of his career at PepsiCo and the Pepsi Bottling Group and was CEO of amusement-park operator Six Flags Entertainment before joining Delta in June 2023. He is one of three executive vice presidents of the Atlanta-based airline.
In a regulatory filing, Delta gave no reason for Spanos’ departure — only that he would receive severance benefits that he is due under the company’s plan for officers and directors. Spanos received compensation valued at $8.6 million last year, mostly in stock awards.
CEO Ed Bastian said in a note to employees that Spanos told him “earlier this summer” he was considering leaving Delta. A spokesperson said this happened before the technology outage.
Bastian wrote that Spanos will move in September to another company, which he did not identify. The CEO credited Spanos with improving Delta’s performance, and added that Delta will not name a new chief operating officer.
Chief operating officers typically run the day-to-day affairs of a company and report directly to the CEO. They are often considered the second-ranking executive, but at Delta, President Glen Hauenstein is generally seen as playing that role.
Delta was hit harder than any other U.S. carrier by last month’s technology outage that started with a faulty upgrade from cybersecurity-software provider CrowdStrike to computers running on Microsoft Windows.
Other airlines recovered within a couple days, but Delta canceled about 7,000 flights over five days as it struggled to reposition crews and match them with planes.
The U.S. Transportation Department is investigating the meltdown, and Delta is pursuing $500 million in damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft. The tech companies say Delta refused help and made misleading claims.
