Pros
The company is very much like a family (for employees, much less so for contractors). Many employees are happy to work as many hours as are needed to support the operation & their co-workers, but (manager-dependent) this isn't broadly expected of employees. In most areas (again, manager-dependent), employees are frequently reminded that family & personal life come first. The politics are sometimes difficult to fully ascertain and navigate (as with any company), but with proper coaching & mentoring it is navigable; coaching and mentoring is relatively easy to come by given how friendly & caring most employees are. The benefits are overall very good. Health insurance c. 2020 is relatively affordable and definitely provides comprehensive coverage options (including life, dental, eye, etc.). Flight benefits are nice to have, but have limitations as the company continues to optimize load factor; however, HR has finally started to realign base salaries higher to reflect the flight benefits' decrease in value over time. The 401k program includes a 6% match & 2% additional DL contribution (so you contribute 6% from your check and your account receives 14% total), as well as provides financial advising/planning opportunities, and many other benefits focused on the overall wellbeing of employees.
Cons
Delta's core operation is very much a 24/7 in-person operation (pilots, FAs, mtc, ops control, etc.). Therefore, most of the divisions supporting Delta's operation do not look kindly upon remote work. Most operations divisions only allow remote work when the employee cannot come into the office for a specified reason (illness, snow, etc.), and those days are few and far between, and must be arranged day-by-day with your manager. IT is by far the most flexible with allowing ongoing work-from-home opportunities, but still only allows employees to work from home 2 days per week (these policies are as of March 2020, and before COVID-19 isolation mandated WFH for all nonessential employees). Additionally, the bureaucracy surrounding any changes (especially technology-related) is highly burdensome (as with any very large company). Some technology-related processes which should be smooth, automated, and/or quick (e.g. login requests, new hire laptop requests, etc.) take a very long time (when I first started with Delta as an analyst, i.e. needed a computer to do my job, I didn't have a laptop for the first 2 weeks, this was in 2010). Again, as with any large company, middle/low management is a big problem in some divisions. executive expectations are very high (as they should be); in some divisions, directors & managers absorb the stress well and direct their teams in a less stress-inducing way, but this is not the norm by-and-large. Typically directors & managers directly pass the stress onto individual contributors (who don't have sufficient power or influence to fully solve the problems) without sufficiently helping/coaching them on what they can specifically do to help achieve a broader goal up to executive expectations. This is compounded when divisional goals are not aligned; this is especially problematic with IT focused on project funding & system uptime whereas the rest of the operation is focused on sustainability, reliability, innovation & customer experience. While the Delta family is great, the way Delta handles the releasing of contractors is abhorrent (in relation to how much we brag about the greatness of the "Delta family"). I have been a full time employee for my entire tenure, but have experienced many contractors who were great but may have needed coaching on one small thing who were unceremoniously fired (some over the phone, some just by notifying the contracting company that the person was no longer welcome at Delta, etc.) and escorted off campus immediately (with no advance warning and no opportunities to work on any performance issues they may have had). This has also been demonstrated by (unfortunately necessary) the immediate laying off of *all* contractors not essential to the operation (about half of the IT division) in the wake of COVID-19 revenue impact. Understand the need to cut, but I would think Delta would care a little bit more about the health & wellbeing of these people long-term (given that many of their contracting companies do not), especially given that some of these contractors are highly-productive, highly-contributing, members of our workforce, and many of them are SMEs for the work they do.
