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Delta Air Lines’ chief operating officer is leaving the airline just weeks after the CrowdStrike outage paralyzed the company.
Delta said Mike Spanos’ decision to leave is unrelated to the tech outage that canceled thousands of flights and stranded hundreds of thousands of Delta passengers in July.
The Atlanta-based airline’s CEO, Ed Bastian, said in a Friday memo to employees that Spanos told him before the outage that he was looking at other job opportunities, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bastian previously said Spanos didn’t lead the response to the CrowdStrike CRWD+4.58% disaster because he was new to the industry.
Spanos had only been at the job for a year and had no aviation experience before taking the role at Delta.
Bastian said Spanos is leaving for a new role, but didn’t specify where he is going. Spanos was previously the CEO of Six Flags and also held senior roles at PepsiCo PEP+0.03%.
The Journal reported Spanos’ last day at the airline will be August 31 and he will receive severance, including 18 months of his base salary. He made a whopping $8.6 million in 2023.
Delta said it would not replace Spanos’ role. Instead, two executives who reported to the COO will now report to Bastian.