Decarbonizing Aviation and Developing Human Capital with Delta Air Lines

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Cowen Insights, a space that brings leading thinkers together to share insights and ideas shaping the world around us. Join us as we converse with the top minds who are influencing our global sectors.
Helane Becker:
Hello, I'm Helane Becker, Cowen's Managing Director of Airline Aircraft Leasing and air cargo research. We are talking with two of Delta Airline's senior executives who have a focus on ESG and government affairs. Amelia DeLuca, Vice President of Sustainability responsible for overseeing the long-term sustainability strategy, managing Delta sustainability investments, building an industry leading team and partnering with government affairs and legal as the airline swiftly drives positive change in an ever-changing regulatory and policy environment.
Helane Becker:
Cherie Wilson is Vice President of Government Affairs Sustainability with responsibility for leading Delta's advocacy strategies on international, federal, state, and local climate policies, ensuring alignment between the company's climate goals and its climate lobbying activities. Her work includes fostering partnerships and policies to catalyze the market for sustainable aviation fueled and other clean energy innovations key to enabling Delta's net zero by 2050 goals. So really excited to have both of you with us today. Thank you for your time.
Helane Becker:
Let's just go right into Q&A and start with, how is Delta thinking about ESG, especially about getting to net zero carbon by 2050? That seems it's not that far from now. I know it sounds like 30 years is a long time, 28 years, but it's really not. It goes really speedily. Let's get into Q&A and start with Amelia. How is Delta thinking about ESG, about getting to net zero carbon by 2050? I wonder if it's an achievable goal. So maybe you can talk about the major drivers that you're using to get there, set the stage. And then, Cherie, you can think about the next question I have for you, which is the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act and what it means for the industry and the challenges that are needed to get us say up to scale. So you think about that, while Amelia answers the first part of the question.
Amelia DeLuca:
Thanks Helane, and thank you for having us here today. It is always great to chat with you about the opportunities and the challenges of the sustainability agenda at Delta. And I think it's important. I'm so glad you laughed about the 30 years to get to net zero as it feels really daunting. But we should laugh just because the sense of we're going to figure it out right? We're going to figure it out. We're working across the industry, we're working with investors like you. We're working with a lot of startups, we're working with a lot of established players, and so it's not daunting, right? We're going to figure it out. It's going to take some twists and turns and some steps forward and some steps back. We're going to get there. Before I go into net zero carbon though, I want to talk a little bit about Delta Airlines because we are more than just a company that flies on jet fuel, which of course is where carbon comes in and we're a trusted consumer brand.
Amelia DeLuca:
So where our mandate is really focused on moving to net zero carbon emissions, we really look at the totality of what it means to have a sustainable travel experience. So I'll point to a couple things that you've already seen. The new amenity kits on board that reduce not only single use plastics but are lifting female Mexican artisans out of poverty by paying them a living wage to reduce that product, to removing single use plastics, to electrifying our ground support equipment, to really just creating and crafting these kind of beautiful stories through our supply chain. And through that, we're lifting up communities, but we're also creating more sustainable totality in everything that comes on board to Delta.
Amelia DeLuca:
Even more recently, we announced a research and development project with MIT on contrails. I only point that out to just say that the scope of sustainability obviously goes beyond carbon, but I know many people really are just focused on carbon because of course 98% of our emissions do come from jet fuel.
Amelia DeLuca:
So yeah, what does net zero at 2050 look like? Well, I would just mention it is a long ways away, but there are things we're doing now. And so I like to break it into really three time horizons. The main lever that we have as an airline is what we will call operational efficiencies, which is essentially everything that we control when it comes to our jet fuel consumption. So in 2022 alone, I did want to highlight that we are looking to be able to save over 10 million gallons through our operations and fleet modifications. So this is not next generation fleet, this is just things we control like reducing aircraft weight, modifying our landing approaches or even optimizing our flight speed at times. We have a dedicated carbon council group that every single year going forward will be responsible for those annual fuel savings. That's your short-term.
Amelia DeLuca:
Medium-term, and this is where the IRA comes in, it's all about sustainable aviation fuel. Because we know those operational efficiencies, they're key cause they're the first thing we can do now and they have almost no cost to them. But those are limited in what you can actually do. It's just like our car, right? We can only get so efficient with our gas guzzling car before there's a limit to what we can do. That's when you move into, okay, what are those next solutions? Sustainable aviation fuel is probably the most important lever that just doesn't really exist today, and so that's why I want to talk about the policy side with Cherie. But sustainable aviation fuel is that next biggest lever. And you've seen airlines such as Delta coming in and not only making investments in startups but working on our offtake agreements. So we can come back and touch on that later. There's a lot in the staff space, but staff is going to be critical.
Amelia DeLuca:
Then long-term is when you get on fleet, and fleet's a constant. You know this because you've covered airlines for years. The turnover of fleet is the constant. It's really a matter of as we get closer to 2050, what is that large step change function that goes beyond just those linear annual efficiency improvements to bringing those aircraft down to zero emissions? And that's when you get into things like Airbus's zero E product that we're partnering with them on to even electric aircraft. And so what does that look like in 2050? But those three main levers on operational efficiencies, sustainable aviation, fuel and fleet are really the three things we have. So while it seems far away and kind of daunting, the good news is we do have a plan for each one of those.
Amelia DeLuca:
Some are further advanced than others, but the industry has really coalesced around those three levers. So I'll turn it over to Cherie to talk about IRA real quick, cause obviously I talked about [inaudible 00:06:32]. Staff though does need a little support from the government, and luckily IRA was a good first step.
Cherie Wilson:
Sure. Thank you so much, Amelia, for that nice introduction, and thank you, Helane, for the opportunity. So as Amelia mentioned, we are really trying to scale an ascent market, and it's quite critical that we have policies in place that will help us catalyze the market. The Inflation Reduction Act took the historic step of advancing what we've seen as the largest climate policy legislation and history really dedicated to trying to figure out how to drive US global leadership and a variety of clean energy technologies and solutions. One of those is with respect to sustainable aviation fuel.
Cherie Wilson:
And so the legislation did include two dedicated tax credits that are specific to sustainable aviation fuel. We are very excited about that. However, I do think that we have to be conscious that there is still more work to do. So it was a great first step in helping to incentivize the market, but we are going to need bolder solutions moving forward. So for example, I'll note that at Delta and across the larger aviation industry, we've supported the administration staff Grand Challenge School, which is striving to increase the market here in the United States from the 2001 levels of 5 million gallons to 3 billion gallons by 2030. So that is a 600 fold increase. As you can see, that is certainly going to require a level of significant investment and commitment from the industry across the full supply and value chain. So what we are doing right now is really taking a assessment of what these incentives will do, how they'll move the market. There's a two year blender's tax credit. We have offtake agreements for about 200 million gallons.
Cherie Wilson:
None of those offtake agreements will qualify for that initial two years. Only those existing producers that are in the market now will be able to utilize the BTC. But when you look at the clean fuel production credit, which essentially is what the lender's tax credit will transition into around the 2025 timeframe, that is where you'll see more opportunity for offtake agreement for the suppliers that are a part of our offtake agreement coming online. The challenge there is that the clean fuels production credit is heavily tilted towards those sustainable aviation fuels that have the lowest emissions. So we're striving to certainly support next gen sustainable aviation fuel. That is something that is definitely going to come online later in the decade. So we want to make sure that we're sending the right targets and market signals just given the timeframe that it requires for our production partners to essentially break ground and go through all of the various permitting and requirements otherwise.
Cherie Wilson:
So one of the challenges there I think, is that we're going to need stronger market signals. I think the amount of the credits were about $1.25 to $1. 75. As you know right now, there are certain incentives in the market for renewable diesel. So we are seeing those producers. We need to encourage them, quite frankly to get into the sustainable aviation fuel market. In order to do that, we have to shift the refining economics in their favor. So that's something that we're trying to work on with the legislation moving forward.
Cherie Wilson:
Additionally, we're also working across our supply chain and thinking about how we can incent demand. And so I know we'll talk a little bit more about that moving forward. But the other element here that I'd also flag is when you think about next gen staff, power to liquids, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act does contain a number of incentives that were about 10 years long. So it certainly had a bit more longevity than we're seeing for sustainable aviation fuel, for renewable electricity deployment, for clean hydrogen deployment, as well as for carbon capture and CREs station technologies and direct air capture.
Cherie Wilson:
We consider those to be the building blocks for power to liquids. And so to the extent that the United States can begin to lead on bringing down the cost for all of those elements, we think that will help over the long term provide the runway that we need to create a market moving forward for power to liquids, which can get us to net zero production levels of sustainable aviation fuel.
Helane Becker:
Got it. So the credits bring the cost of SAF to more affordable levels. That we're trying to do here, I guess. Is that right?
Amelia DeLuca:
Correct. Correct. We want it to be more affordable and we also want to encourage investment.
Helane Becker:
Right. Okay. So see, I don't know if it's you or Amelia, do you see a future where the Monroe Refinery can produce SAF?
Amelia DeLuca:
Yep. I'm happy to take that one. And I think that's what makes us really powerful between Cherie and I and just the broader Delta team is that we've got a front row seat into the decisions that refineries are making right now as they try to determine what products they're going to make in the future. So from our perspective, we are with Delta looking at pathways for integrating Monroe into a net zero future and supporting our 10% set goal. As you've probably seen Monroe, there was some coverage that Monroe is evaluating the possibility of producing sustainable aviation fuel as well as other renewable fuels at the Trainer refinery. We would just make a note though that legislation or regulatory reform on the RFS standards, which we can talk about, are required to improve the functionality of the REN market, which would reduce our compliance costs and improve the RFS program so that both farmers and refiners benefit from the structure of the program.
Amelia DeLuca:
So maybe Cherie, just hit on that real quick. And it kind of goes into, again, one, there is obviously a decision to be made about what materials are coming out of the refinery, but then there are a lot of policies even on refineries today that can impact what products that they're making. I don't know, Cherie, if you want to touch on that real quick.
Cherie Wilson:
Sure. Happy to chime in there. I think one of the challenges that we faced is that the red market is fairly opaque. So there's questions around the transparency of the REN market. And I think in terms of the costs that associated with compliance, there are insufficient drivers there. We think that, for example, if you had a SAF multiplier, that might help adjust some of those incentives to encourage renewable diesel producers to invest in sustainable aviation fuel, for example, over and above renewable diesel. So kind of thinking about the long-term viability of that program through that lens is important, but ultimately it is also about the transparency. And right now the prices that are associated with the REN's value tend to fluctuate in a very opaque nature. So we're hoping to bring transparency to that market.
Helane Becker:
Got it. That's very helpful. That's really helpful and it's helpful to understand, I think, how SAF is going to be integrated into the network. Because I feel like for a long-haul flying it'll, be SAF. And I don't know what you guys think about this, I feel as though manufacturing enough of it, scaling is really the issue. Everybody in air quotes there seems to have a solution to use SAF and I see lots and lots of agreements between various airlines and producers.
Helane Becker:
So maybe two questions. One is, how do you decide which producers to work with? Two, is it even realistic? An airline Delta uses about, what, 4 billion gallons of jet fuel annually? And I think the agreement is for something like, I want to say 40 or 50 million annually, I'm probably remembering that incorrectly. But it's not in the league of what you actually need. I want you to answer that question first, but then I want to sort of pivot to how you're going to think about short and medium-term flying. Because long-term makes sense, right? I think the numbers I've seen 20% of flights provide 80% of emission. So that argues for SAP or a change in engine technology. So I'll stop there, and I'll start with how do you decide on the partners?
Amelia DeLuca:
Sure. Oh yes. The story of staff is always an interesting one. And I will just mention, Helane, you are spot on that SAF is going to be here. It's going to be here for a while. There are not a lot of other solutions for long-haul flying. Though I will say, the journey does not end at 2050 for us as an industry, right? [inaudible 00:15:11] beyond 2050 that maybe someday there is a world where we're not using SAF at all and we're fully on hydrogen or electric. But that's not at 2050. So you're spot on. Every model that anyone has ever come up with, third party or within an airline, shows that SAF is the most important part of the walk towards net zero. But again, as Cherie mentioned, there's almost none of it today and we've got to basically scale it so that the totality of our fuel is coming from something that's sustainable.
Amelia DeLuca:
So I think the most important thing to note is there's many chapters of SAF. We talk about SAF at this very high level and there's going to many different chapters in sustainable aviation fuel as we scale it. It's not just one product that's made from one feed stock and one technology today that we got to figure out how to just scale. You're going to layer on the products as we go. So let's start with today, right? Today we talk about things like used cooking oil that's produced through what's called a half the technology process that happens today. That's what airlines are flying on today. We know very quickly we're going to get to feed stock limitations, meaning there's not enough used cooking oil in the world. There's not enough [inaudible 00:16:15] oil and that already is being competed with other industries. And so it kind of becomes a quick page turn of what does the SAF chapter look like?
Amelia DeLuca:
And as Cherie mentioned, we're running these parallel paths because you've got SAF that's being produced, and it's available today. You've got SAF producers that have viable pathways in the future that need to break ground now. Then there's of course research and development that says how do we create power to liquid fuels at scale? How do we scale renewable energy in the US? How do we scale clean hydrogen in the US and around the world? All that to say how do we choose our staff producers? While very similar to that [inaudible 00:16:48] is we try to fill out our portfolio by being diverse. So diverse in terms of not only feed stock, diverse in terms of technology, diverse in terms of sophistication of the partner, meaning just in the sense of some are going to be established major oil and gas companies, some are going to be startups.
Amelia DeLuca:
We've spent a lot of time choosing our partners. And I will say we're really proud at Delta. We've seen some of our partners such as like a Jibo for example, just really seeing industry coalesce around Jibo to say that we think for us that's great. We celebrate when we've got other industry partners coming in and signing these offtake agreements with our staff partners. Cause that just means that it's more likely that person, that group is going to make it. And so we celebrate a Jibo, which is one we've been in the mix with for quite some time. And then we bring online new startups like a DG Fuels was our most recent. So when we're signing those, we're looking at things like I mentioned, diversity of feed stock because we know there's not enough of any sort of feed stock that really exists today to scale.
Amelia DeLuca:
So let's make sure we have a diversification of where's that feed stock coming from as well as technology, because these technologies are going to scale at different, not like cost pads, but timelines. And then I think the other thing, just to mention, and Cherie talked about it a little bit, is not all staff is created equal in terms of the ultimate greenhouse gas emission savings. So for us, our goal is 400 million gallons SAF at 2030. So 400 million is the 10% of our 4 billion gallons of fuel. But of that 400 million through our commitment to the First Movers Coalition that was launched at COP last year, 200 million must have greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 85% more.
Amelia DeLuca:
So we are balancing out, again, just each one of those things I just mentioned to you also has a different impact in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions. And so First Movers Coalition really put to the forefront for us, we need to get with partners that are getting into that almost that next level of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Which DG Fuels is really interesting because there's lots of ways that you can bring greenhouse gas emissions down, whether it's through the regenerative agriculture practices that are used on the land through the actual refinement process and the use of hydrogen and carbon capture. And so it's going to be fun to watch not only airlines, but staff producers start to put together different puzzle pieces to try to have the biggest impact on the planet through the product that they deliver.
Helane Becker:
My next question is really with short-haul flying. So long-haul, I get it, the 10% makes sense. We get there soon, seven years soon. So you guys pivoted away in the process of pivoting away from the 50 seat RJ, and you're focused on larger regional jets. So when you think about short-haul, you think every everybody, again, those air quotes that eVOTLs contemplated as ground replacement [inaudible 00:19:30]. That's how I've done a lot of work in this space, and that's how we think about them here at Cowen. We think that eVOTLs, at least the ones that Joby is manufacturing now are really ground replacement. There's nothing out there yet. And I think, Amelia, you mentioned hybrid or electric. I suspect that will be the medium-term answer to moving 100 or 150 people between say Atlanta and New York, or New York and Chicago.
Helane Becker:
But you guys just announced a big investment in Joby. I don't know if you can actually talk about the investment in the context of future growth and how you're thinking about sustainability overall and also the context of the infrastructure needed to make eVOTL reality. Well, as you guys both know, there's a lot of issues with air traffic control, and I just have this vision of all these jets and aircraft flying around the airspace without having enough air traffic controllers to begin with. I'm trying to be not old in my thinking. I'm trying to embrace young thinking, I'm thinking how this is going to work, but what are you guys thinking about this?
Amelia DeLuca:
Thanks for bringing it up, Helane. Joby is a really exciting partnership for us here at Delta. And to your point though, it's exciting because it's really innovative. It has the opportunity to really change the customer journey when traveling in some pretty congested markets on the ground. And so this does open up a new way of accessing air travel, a new way of moving about. For Delta particularly, I just want to mention we chose Joby just because we thought that they were a partner that shared our pioneering spirit and our commitment to delivering innovative, seamless experiences to customers. And so it was really more about the customer experience and the innovation coming from Joby that made us want to put our brands together. When we made the commitment through that investment, I think a couple things I will note is that it is about solving those problems together with Joby, right?
Amelia DeLuca:
It is about understanding what does air traffic control have to look like for eVTOL to come online and scale? And you've noticed that we picked two of our hub markets, New York and Atlanta as the starting point because those are really important markets not only for this product, but for us as Delta to figure this out. And Joby's obviously a leading partner. But you're right, this is very short-haul type flying. Not even short-haul, it's short range. To me this really becomes a question of the innovation of the future, the customer travel experience of the future more so than something that is a replacement for Delta's RJ flying today. This is a completely different line of work, but I do think it's pre aligned with the Delta brand in the sense of Delta's made investments, for example, in the past, in Clear and in Wheels Up, which again are things that are just part of the travel experience.
Amelia DeLuca:
So by being able to be a little bit more innovative, and again putting the Delta brand kind of side by side to say we're going to solve these problems, that's where it becomes interesting. I'll just highlight that's also consistent with how we're working with Airbus. So with Airbus, we have signed on to be their North America launch partner, not launch in product, but development partner in terms of their zero E, which is their hydrogen product. Very similarly, what is really interesting about that behind the scenes is it's just frequent workshops with them that just kind of says, okay, what does this product look like? How many seats are on there? What is the range? What are the capabilities? What are the challenges? What are the opportunities and how do we solve them together? And Joby is very similar to that. We'll be sitting side by side with them. It's not just an investment. It is really trying to figure out how do we bring this new experience online for our customers.
Helane Becker:
That's very exciting. Thank you for that. And then just one final question. In some of your sustainability reports, you mentioned climate events like acute flooding and sea level increases as risks to an airport like LaGuardia, which is underwater today. No, it's just raining in New York today. Not underwater, just kidding. So how are you thinking about building resiliency into your airport infrastructure? Is there a need for, I don't know, a sustainability equivalent of next gen advisory committee to plan for these risks? And honestly, I don't know how relevant that is to your network across the board because you don't fly in a lot of low lying places.
Amelia DeLuca:
Well, I will say the physical challenges from climate change are still being explored. Just more broadly, how do thunderstorms impact our ability to operate in the future? Those are all things that we're going to continue to learn as science develops. But to your point, we know quite a lot, at least through modeling today about what airports or what infrastructure's going to be impacted. This last year we ran what's called a physical risk assessment and external consultant consultants come in and basically we took our top 21 airports and then ran them through what's called a worst case global warming scenario. And lo and behold Helane, yes, LaGuardia is the only one that is a problem. So that's the first thing, right? It's just awareness. And I will tell you, obviously LaGuardia as an airport knows that as well. They are great partners, while of all of our airports are coming very quickly online with us to say, what does the airport of the future look like? How does it use renewable energy? How are we preparing for climate change?
Amelia DeLuca:
And so I'll just touch on LaGuardia since obviously that is our most high risk, but also one that's just basically been renovated. So it's a great opportunity to fix that. I'll mention for us, all critical electrical and mechanical infrastructure were placed above the design flood evaluation. And so we've accounted not only for future sea level rise, but also for things like storm surge and wave action during a major flood event. From that perspective, not to minimize it, because to your point, this is the small thing amongst our bigger jet fuel problem, but it's one of the most immediate challenges that we'll have. Not just for as sea level rises, but as mentioned, if there's a storm surge or just waves coming off, we need to make sure that the airport is ready to withstand it. So just hats off to not only Delta CRA team, but the entire LaGuardia and the New York port area because they're very much on it in a way that we appreciate.
Helane Becker:
That's really helpful. And I didn't even think of storm surge, but you're right.
Amelia DeLuca:
Right?
Helane Becker:
That could come up and then all of a sudden you're five feet above, maybe you should be 10 feet above because you get those once in 500 year storms every year. So it's just accelerate. I feel like it's accelerating.
Amelia DeLuca:
No, I was just going to say, I agree with you. And I will say we haven't touched upon it entirely yet, but what I just love about just working in sustainability at an airline in particular is that we just get to work with so many great people. Our airports are obviously great partners of our [inaudible 00:26:10] very advanced in this thinking just because generally building infrastructure is one of the top things that the world thinks about. But even some of the other topics you've heard me kind of interweave that we work with other airlines really well, that we work with coalitions from agriculture to hydrogen. The world of sustainability is going to make the aviation ecosystem look a little bit different than it traditionally has. But I think it's very refreshing because it's a sector that everyone wants to figure this out. People are not rooting against us, they're rooting for us because people know the value that air travel brings to not only their personal lives but to their livelihoods, to economies around the world.
Amelia DeLuca:
So it's just a nice feeling that yes, we have a ton of challenges. We've talked about a number of them today, but there's so many more we haven't talked about yet. Infrastructure at airports to support our ground support equipment electrification, I could go on and on for days [inaudible 00:27:01] challenges that we have. But no matter where I look, whenever I have a problem, I've got someone, a partner standing there basically being like, "Let's go solve this together." And so that is where I would make sure we close on that. That yes, it's very [inaudible 00:27:13], but we've got great partners, including our investors who work with us day in and day out to say, "Hey, have you thought about this?" Or, "Hey, you might be at risk in the future if you're not either reporting on this, being transparent about this, thinking about this, having the right ambitions." And so we are constantly evolving through this listen act, listen mantra that we've set for ourselves when it comes to climate change and we look forward to continuing to listen, act, listen in the future.
Helane Becker:
That's really great. Thanks Amelia. Cherie, is there anything you wanted to add before we close for the day?
Cherie Wilson:
Thanks so much. I would just reinforce what Amelia said. I think we know that there's power in partnerships and coalition building. And so in our advocacy we always try to work with our supply chain partners and across our value chain. When we think about the opportunities with the First Movers Coalition, for example, I'm actually at the BTN Innovate conference today where I'm encouraging our corporate supply chain partners to think about co-investing and sustainable aviation fuel with us, and also advocating for more robust solutions to help scale the market. So this is a journey. We can't do it alone and we are excited to do this transparently and to be one of the most trusted companies in the world with respect to our sustainability goals, objectives, and how we get there. So thank you for the opportunity to talk about that, and always good to do anything with Amelia.
Helane Becker:
Well, thank you both. I've gotten to know Amelia a little bit over the last year, and I think the one thing about Delta is that you're an industry leader across the board in a lot of different places. This is just another area where guys are taking the lead and really taking the ball and running with it. And I think it's going to be very exciting to see how the industry adapts. Because to your point, without a robust airline industry, we don't have robust economies. And you already see that happening in the smaller cities in the United States where we don't have enough pilots to serve them, and where people have to really rethink their travel experience and where cities lose out from an economic perspective. Because if you don't have a good aviation support network to get people in and out easily, you're not going to attract industry. So love that you guys took the time today to talk to me about this and we look forward here at Cowen to paying attention to what you guys are doing over the next few years.
Amelia DeLuca:
Thanks Helane.
Cherie Wilson:
Thank you.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for joining us. Stay tuned for the next episode of Cowen Insights.

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