Report: Trump miffed at Delta chief

CEO absent as airlines, president discussed Middle Eastern rivals.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian ended up on President Donald Trump’s bad side by missing a meeting of airline leaders with the president, according to a report by NBC News.

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz and other airline CEOs attended an hourlong session with Trump in the Oval Office earlier this month, the report said. At the meeting, Munoz and Parker argued that Middle Eastern carriers get government subsidies allowing cut-rate fares, which cost American jobs. Delta is part of a coalition with American and United lobbying their case on the matter.

However, Bastian was traveling and not able to attend the meeting.

The president “scolded” Delta, according to the NBC News report, “for buying billions in planes from the European firm Airbus while Qatar Airways is buying its jets from Chicago-based Boeing Co.”

“And he repeatedly harped on Bastian’s absence, questioning how he could be a no-show after his airline — more than any other — had been fanning the flames of the fight,” NBC News reported, based on interviews with people who spoke anonymously. “Trump kept bringing up the absence of Bastian, the Delta CEO.”

“There was a lot of yelling,” one person who attended the meeting told NBC News, according to the report.

Delta issued a statement saying: “Due to previously scheduled travel that couldn’t be adjusted, Ed Bastian was unable to attend the meeting with the president; however his and Delta’s commitment to leveling the playing field for international aviation remains as strong as ever.”

Bastian has spent years fostering a positive relationship with the president, pledging to hire 25,000 people in five years following a 2017 meeting of airline CEOs with the president, praising Trump’s tax reform plan, and thanking the Trump Administration for a 2018 agreement with Qatar to protect American jobs.

However, Delta, American and United now contend that Qatar Airways is taking advantage of a loophole in the agreement by

BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM 2018 Delta says CEO Ed Bastian was unable to change his schedule to attend the meeting but remains committed to “leveling the playing field for international aviation.”