Charlie Rose Talks to Delta CEO Richard Anderson

Delta Air Lines’ CEO discusses his industry’s merger wave, the Dreamliner, and buying a refinery to save on jet fuel

Airfares are "down about 10 percent from where they would have been right before 9/11. So we still offer tremendous value."Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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By Charlie Peete Rose

May 24, 2013 at 12:36 AM UTC

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This article is part of the May 27, 2013 issue of businessweek.

With all the consolidation among airlines, where does that leave us, your customers?
The industry is incredibly competitive, probably one of the most competitive industries in our country or in the world. And consumers have good transparency through the Internet on fares. So there’s plenty of contestability in the marketplace with four big carriers. If you analyze airfares since deregulation, they’re down on an inflation-adjusted basis, including fees—probably down a third from where they were [before] deregulation. And they’re down about 10 percent from where they would have been right before 9/11. So we still offer tremendous value.

Are you interested in buying Dreamliners?
When I was CEO at Northwest in 2003, I shook hands with Alan Mulally to buy the first 18 of them, and we made a decision in 2009 to defer that. They’ll get it right. Boeing’s a great company.