Delta Airlines: Four Financial Goals

Assume the airline Delta Airlines has just made you president. As the new president, create a report for the airline's stakeholders with the following:

• Introduction: Briefly introduce the airline and the situation leading up to you being made president.
◦ Assume that you have been brought in to improve profitability and long-term success for the airline.
◦ Provide a paragraph or two overviewing the current situation with the airline (from your SWOT analysis) and introducing yourself as president.

• Mission and Vision: Describe the new purpose and mission for the airline.
◦ Review the airline's current mission and vision.
◦ Explain what you will change and why. Support your changes to the mission and vision statements with factual information from at least three business publications in the field.
◦ Write a new formal mission and vision statement.

• Communications Plan: Describe how you will communicate your new presidency and your future direction for the airline to the existing employees and the press.
• Financial Objectives: Any airline is concerned with safely getting people from one point to another and doing so in a way that is profitable. Detail how your airline plans to accomplish this by listing four of the airline's new financial goals.
◦ For example, you might want to increase profitability by a certain percentage. Explain how you plan to do that—for example, spending less on staff training or food service, or leasing planes rather than buying them.
◦ Identify at least four specific financial goals, all geared toward increasing profitability through bringing in revenue or reducing expenses. Describe the rationale behind your goals.
◦ Consider the market standing, productivity, facilities, stockholders (if applicable), worker performance, profitability, innovation, and social responsibility.

• Action Plan: Create an action plan for achieving the four goals that you set.
◦ Considering what you learned in the SWOT analysis you completed in Assessment 1, include items such as intended markets (staying where you are or moving and why), hiring and training, and technology.
◦ For each of the four goals you identified, explain which strategy you will use, the time it will take to assess the results, and your exit strategy if the plan does not work. For example, if you decide to increase revenue by generating more customers through a fare sale, explain how you will advertise the fare, how much of a reduction it will be, how you expect it to impact your profits, and so on.
◦ Include, when applicable, items such as communications, employee relations, route planning, public relations, advertising, et cetera.

• Methods of Control and Feedback: Describe how you will assess meeting your goals and how you will go about making changes as necessary.
◦ Remember that setting a goal is only valuable if you take steps to achieve it and then measure your success.
◦ Consider how you will measure success of each goal. For example, if you choose to add food service, consider how you will know whether this has been successful. Financials will not answer this question, but what will? Customer surveys? Staff feedback? How many tickets would you sell after the announcement is made?

Suggested Resources:
•CAPA Centre for Aviation. (n.d.). Delta Air Lines. Retrieved from http://centreforaviation.com/profiles/airlines/delta-air-lines-dl
•CAPA Centre for Aviation. (2013). Delta Air Lines' 2014 network strategy entails bypassing Tokyo and leveraging partnerships. Retrieved from http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/delta-air-lines-2014-network-strategy-entails-bypassing-tokyo-and-leveraging-partnerships-145281
•Sharrieff, M. (n.d.). How to write a strategic analysis for business organizations. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/write-strategic-analysis-business-organizations-89.html
•Lin, M. H. (2012). Airlines-within-airlines strategies and existence of low-cost carriers. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 48(3), 637-651.