What's Going on With Ed Bastian?

Delta's CEO was quoted as saying harsh words about Pete Buttigieg. The comments have been taken down, but the airline didn't say they're not true.

Dear readers,

In a highly unusual move, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian blasted the industry's top regulator at an event last week, saying Pete Buttigieg overstepped when he criticized the airline's response to July's CrowdStrike outage.

"I got pretty annoyed with our secretary of transportation," Bastian said Thursday at an event in Minneapolis, according to published comments by the miles-and-points website Thrifty Traveler that were later scrubbed from its website."You've got politicians running some of the cabinet offices there, and they're doing it to make inroads and get name recognition."

Neither the reporter nor the airline has called the story inaccurate, though in a short statement a Delta spokesman alleged the reporter had not been invited to the event.

I don’t care about the audience (more on that drama later) or how a reporter learned about Bastian’s comments. Comments like these break the cardinal rule of airlines: Do not criticize your regulator, and certainly don’t do it at any event where it might become public. I assure you: Bastian knows this unwritten rule. I’m surprised he broke it.