Delta's unorthodox fix-it man is feuding with rivals again

ATLANTA – In the past few years, Delta Air Lines' CEO offended some Middle Easterners with a reference to Sept. 11, pitted the carrier against Boeing Co. in a trade issue and upset conservatives at home in Georgia.

Is this any way to run an airline?

It is for Richard Anderson, who in nearly eight years as chief executive has taken Delta from bankruptcy to record profits and soaring customer satisfaction rankings. With Delta prospering, the 60-year-old Anderson now is advocating a cause that could cement his legacy — or tarnish it.

Anderson says the rapid U.S. growth of the Persian Gulf airlines stems from billions of dollars in market-distorting subsidies from their governments. He is urging the Obama administration to freeze new flights into the U.S. In this fight, some admirers see Anderson growing into a blunt-speaking industry statesman, a role vacant since American Airlines' chain-smoking, in-your-face chief Robert Crandall retired in 1998.

"Both of them were not afraid to tell you what they think," said former Continental Airlines CEO Gordon ­Bethune.

Anderson's efforts to watchdog the Gulf carriers' expansion may be his biggest public challenge since he led Delta's purchase of Northwest Airlines seven years ago — and his most contentious.

The travel and aviation industries are far from united on curbing Persian Gulf flights. Airports and travelers benefit from more service. JetBlue Airways jumped in this week with a letter to three Cabinet secretaries saying Delta and its peers received "indirect subsidies associated with bankruptcy protection." In ­February, executives at FedEx and United Parcel Service joined in writing the same officials to warn against restricting "legitimate competitive opportunities for ­foreign carriers."

"We've got a lot of folks in this country, not in the airline industry obviously, who want to keep those flights coming in," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who nonetheless said he was concerned about Delta's allegations.

Anderson came to Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines in 2007 after three years at UnitedHealth Group, preceded by 14 years as CEO and other management roles at Northwest. He faced a grim future with an airline just out of bankruptcy and an economy headed into a deep recession. By 2014, Delta reported $2.8 billion in adjusted income and had the highest customer rating among the big three U.S. ­carriers.

Delta's renaissance coincided with the emergence of the Persian Gulf airlines — Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways — as industry heavyweights.

Since 1998, Emirates has surged to the world's largest airline by international capacity from No. 30, according to figures compiled by Delta, American and United. Qatar went to 10th from 90th, while Etihad is 13th.

Behind that expansion, according to Delta: hidden cash grants, no-interest loans and assumptions of losses on fuel hedging contracts by the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

This violates fair-competition rules in the agreements that govern where and how often Gulf airlines can fly to the U.S., Delta says. It eventually enlisted American and United in its campaign to highlight the alleged violations, and the threesome presented a 55-page report on their findings to the Obama administration in January.