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Article: Delta Air Lines: Ringing up strategic gains.
- Article from:
- Purchasing
- Article date:
- January 14, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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At Delta Air Lines in Atlanta, transforming a strategic purchasing activity into a revenue-generating service is not a new idea. Indeed, way back in 1981 Delta Air Lines formed a wholly owned subsidiary called Epsilon to buy and sell jet fuel. United Airlines was the first company to get a distributor's license; we just followed suit, says Tom Shell, general manager for fuel purchasing at Delta. We sell $40 to $50 million of jet fuel, mostly in Cincinnati, where we operate that facility's fuel system. DHL is our largest customer.
We don't pursue this activity to make a lot of revenue, says Shell. We make comfortable returns, but Epsilon meets our strategic ...