From September 30, Delta Air Lines (DL) Board of Directors will see Vasant Prabhu as its newest member.
Vasant Prabhu is currently serving as the Vice Chair, Chief Financial Officer of Visa Inc. and has been serving as Chief Financial Officer since 2015, further elected as Vice Chair in 2019.
He will retire from the position in Visa on September 30 to join the Delta Board of Directors thereafter.
Mr. Prabhu holds an MBA from the Univeristy of Chicago Booth School of Business, as well as a bachelor’s of technology in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.
Valuable expertise
On the announcement of Vasant Prabhu’s future within the Delta Air Lines Board, Frank Blake, Delta’s Non-Executive Chair of the Board commented:
“Vasant’s extensive financial experience as a chief financial officer of several large public companies, as well as his substantial global management experience, will contribute valuable expertise to Delta’s board,”
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“Most importantly, he shares Delta’s values of always putting people first as we serve our customers, employees, owners and communities.” he concluded.
Prior to his time in Visa Inc., Vasant Pravhu served the position of Chief Financial Officer for NBCUniversal Media, LLC from May of 2014 to February the year after.
Before that he served as Chief Financial Officer and Vice Chairman of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. for a decade, from 2004 until 2014.
He also served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Safeway Inc., from 2000 until 2004. Additionally, Mr. Prabhu has also held senior leadership roles at the McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., as well as PepsiCo Inc., and Booz Allen Hamilton.
The Board of Directors
Per date, the Delta Board of Directors contains thirteen members, among which is Delta Air Lines’ CEO, Edward H. Bastian and Francis S. Blake, non-executive Chairman of Delta’s Board of Directors.
“The Board believes sound corporate governance practices provide an important framework in assisting the Board to discharge its responsibilities.”
“Accordingly, the Board has adopted corporate governance principles relating to its functions, structure, and operations” its called on the Board’s page.”
“With the introduction of Vasant Prabhu later this year, he will become the fourteenth serving member unless any designated positions become announced at a later time, ahead of his induction in the Board.
Delta’s Q1 results: loss with a positive yearly outlook
AviationSource previously covered Delta Air Lines’ disclosed 2023 first-quarter results and the review of its full-year outlook.
The airline reported revenue and earnings results in line with its previously issued guidance, however still lower than expectations, but also provided a positive outlook for the year.
The airline recorded an operating loss of 277 million USD. The reasons for this loss were given as increased operating costs, pay increases and more profit-sharing payments.
The company achieved operating revenue of 11.8 billion USD. This was an increase of 14% compared to the same quarter in 2019, a 45% increase to 2022. Revenue is often lower in the Winter seasons.
Its operating cash flow was almost 3 billion USD, a record result that the carrier stated enabled accelerated debt reduction. The carrier’s liquidity was reported as 9.5 billion USD and its adjusted net debt was 21 billion USD.
Ed Bastian, Delta’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “Thanks to the outstanding work and dedication of the Delta team, 2023 is off to a strong start. We provided well-deserved pay increases for our people and paid more profit sharing than the rest of the industry combined.”
Operationally, the carrier achieved on-time arrivals of 81% in the quarter, reportedly the most on-time among U.S. carriers.
This was also reflected in the earning of the Cirium Platinum Award for global operational excellence as North America’s most on-time airline.
Also as previously reported by AviationSource, Delta has shown a steady increase in operations, year-on-year, since the pandemic. Showing a steady return to recovery and surpassing 2019 operations.
Looking ahead to the rest of 2023, the airline remains positive of its finances and operations. It reported record advanced bookings for 2023 summer. The March quarter advance cash bookings were around 20% higher on the same period in 2019.
