Apparently, for airline stock Delta Air Lines (DAL), chief operations officer Mike Spanos was something of an issue. His departure, only recently announced, was welcomed by investors, who sent shares up nearly 2% in Friday afternoon’s trading.
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Spanos was with Delta for just over a year, coming on board back in May 2023 after running operations at Six Flags (FUN) and Pepsi (PEP). However, it is hard to ignore recent events; after all, only weeks ago, Delta suffered a serious operational meltdown following an outage at CrowdStrike (CRWD), which, in turn, set off the issues at Delta.
Yet, this does not seem like a case of Spanos falling on his sword, at least not in full. Spanos had been having discussions with Delta CEO Ed Bastian about other opportunities several weeks before the CrowdStrike problem even cropped up. That suggests that Spanos had been dissatisfied at Delta for some time before the problem hit.
Delta Launches New Promotion
Meanwhile, life goes on at Delta, and it has a new plan to help its long-time members become Medallion-status members. Delta has been working to make its Medallion state easier to reach, and now, it may be the easiest yet.
SkyMiles members who book a flight before September 30 and travel by October 31 will land one Medallion Qualification Dollar per dollar spent through the Delta Travel Extras portal. This includes things like hotel stays, vacation rentals, and car rentals.
Is Delta Stock a Buy or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on DAL stock based on 10 Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 1.5% loss in its share price over the past year, the average DAL price target of $61.50 per share implies 49.62% upside potential.
