As usual, company execs are quick to wade into the political fray, only to back peddle once they see what a mess they've created. -------------- Delta Reveals Only 13 Passengers Used NRA Discount Which Cost Airline $40 Million Tax Break Delta Air Lines is paying a hefty price for jumping on the gun control bandwagon in the wake of the February 14 school shooting in Parkland, FL. After eliminating a discount for NRA members, the Georgia state legislature responded by eliminating a $40 million discount on jet-fuel which had been part of a larger tax package. Delta admitted, however, that only 13 people had taken the airline up on the NRA discount - which translates to roughly $3 million per discount in tax breaks. While one can imagine Delta looked at the low participation rate and felt the discount was an expendable token to jump on the anti-gun bandwagon, they probably didn't see the Georgia legislature coming: Georgia GOP lawmakers signed into law a broad tax bill which had been amended to kill a proposed break on jet fuel, signed into law by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal - despite objecting to the Delta fight as an "unbecoming squabble." In response, Delta CEO Ed Bastian sent out a memo to employees that insisted the airline's aim is to stay neutral in the gun debate. "While Delta's intent was to remain neutral, some elected officials in Georgia tied our decision to a pending jet fuel tax exemption, threatening to eliminate it unless we reversed course," Bastian said. "Our decision was not made for economic gain and our values are not for sale." Delta will also review discounts offered to other politically involved groups. "We are in the process of a review to end group discounts for any group of a politically divisive nature," Bastian said. Delta is one of Georgia's largest private employers - a state in which 31.6% of residents own firearms. The NRA and Georgia GOP legislators argued that Delta's elimination of the NRA discount amounted to a punishment for people who cherish the Second Amendment. The Georgia Senate passed the tax measure 44-10 after the jet-fuel provision was removed, while the House followed with a 135-24 vote.
The real "back-firing" starts when Delta abandons all of it upcoming development and hiring plans in Georgia. This is coming soon. Shortly the citizens of the state will be slapping their state legislators for being so short-sighted and stupid.
Even if they do, and decide to move elsewhere, the cost of infrastructure building/leasing and the price of moving headcount, etc. all of it could have been avoided if Delta approached this differently. How many examples of this stuff do companies need to see before they get the idea to make changes quietly without making a statement?
Delta had plans to expand finance, back-off, IT, and reservation operations in Atlanta. Those plans and jobs are all now gone. The citizens of Georgia can thank their state legislature for being idiots.
Probably, though if they get a better deal I doubt Bezos will make a decision based on politics and not money.
I'm not disagreeing with you. But there is an inherent cost in changing those plans to Delta as well. Removing the fact that the legislature is a bunch of idiots, if Delta's execs had just quietly removed the NRA discount and told the NRA they were removing all discount programs as a matter of business and not made a public statement out of it, all of this could have been avoided. Instead, for 13 people's discounts, they had to go through all of this.
I was amused by the idiot protestors outside the American Airlines headquarters in Texas demanding that the airline remove the NRA discount... forcing the airline to come out and state "we never had an NRA discount".
Are you saying that Delta will put the jobs in another state as punishment to Georgia? It's one thing to try to bully a state in which you don't do business. It's a totally different matter when you are headquartered there and it is your major hub. It's seldom a good idea to get into a controversy with the local government. Delta's best move here is to apologize, fire some people and reinstitute the NRA affiliation.
I saying that Delta's plans to expand in Georgia are now done. It will be a strong lesson to the legislature in Georgia. The interesting part is Delta doesn't even need to announce anything about choosing a different location than Georgia for expansion in order to rub the legislators noses in it; it will be obvious when the operation opens elsewhere.