Delta chief operations officer departing for another company after just over a year on the job

Delta Air Lines’ chief operating officer is leaving at the end of the month, the company said in a securities filing Friday.

CEO Ed Bastian said in an employee memo that Chief Operating Officer Mike Spanos is taking a job at another company.

His departure, after just over a year on the job, comes weeks after Delta suffered a meltdown in the wake of the massive CrowdStrike outage in July. Delta estimates those disruptions cost the airline some $500 million and said it will seek compensation from CrowdStrike and Microsoft.

However, Bastian said in the memo Friday that Spanos told him earlier in the summer that he was “considering opportunities outside of Delta.”

Delta doesn’t plan to replace Spanos, Bastian said. Instead, John Laughter, chief of operations and president of Delta’s TechOps maintenance and overhaul unit, and Allison Ausband, chief customer experience officer, will report to Bastian.

Spanos joined Delta in May 2023 and previously held the role of CEO at Six Flags Entertainment and executive positions at PepsiCo.