The carrier will give eligible workers a pay bump for the fourth consecutive year.
Delta and Southwest aircraft in Austin. (Photo: Shutterstock | lorenzatx)
Delta says it will move forward with a 4% pay increase for non-union employees despite an increasingly uncertain economic outlook hampering the broader airline industry.
The pay bump will take effect June 1 and applies to most Delta workers except for pilots and dispatchers, whose salaries are set by union contracts. It is the fourth consecutive year Delta employees have received a raise.
The carrier first announced the pay increase in January, when CEO Ed Bastian predicted “the best financial year” in the company’s history. Demand for travel was comparatively strong and many industry watchers expected a continued rebound from the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But concerns about tariffs and international trade have undermined that once sunny outlook, and many airlines are now reducing their capacity and adjusting earnings expectations.
That includes Delta, which earlier this month withdrew its financial guidance for 2025, citing “broad macro uncertainty.” Company officials said it would be “premature” to offer a new prediction for the year, given the disruptive effects of tariffs on the global economy.
“February and March reflected a much more challenging macro environment than anyone initially planned for coming into 2025,” Bastian told investors at the time. “We were positioned for another year of strong growth, however, given broad economic uncertainty around global trade, growth has largely stalled.”
Looking to the second quarter, Delta forecast that its total revenue could decline up to 2% or grow by up to 2% over the prior year.
Still, the carrier is intent on implementing the raise as promised.
In a new statement, Bastian said Delta will continue to “invest” in its employees “even as we face new pressures.”
In February, Delta employees received the equivalent of about five weeks of extra pay as part of the company’s profit-sharing plan. A total of $1.4 billion was distributed to workers worldwide.
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