Delta Airlines was among the first companies to jump on the Boycott NRA bandwagon. Almost immediately, it revoked a little-used membership discount, then tried to claim it wanted to stay out of the debate.
Well, it can’t. Delta entered the debate the moment it made its announcement. Recently, however, Delta’s CEO claimed it made business sense to virtue signal.
The NRA, obviously, disagrees.
The Washington Post, however, characterized Delta’s move differently, situating it squarely within the #BoycottNRA movement. The airline, in other words, had merely jumped on a self-glorifying corporate bandwagon that has done nothing to harm the NRA but has done much to remind gun-owning Americans just what is at stake in the gun control debate.
Ironically, Delta’s move hurt its own shareholders far worse than it did NRA members. While only 13 NRA members took advantage of the now revoked Delta Discount, the airline’s attempt to implicate the NRA in school shootings led the Georgia legislature to eliminate tax breaks that were expected to be worth some $50 million to the Atlanta-based company.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian, however, remained defiant. “Our decision was not made for economic gain and our values are not for sale,” he said in a statement on the legislative reversal, as if Delta’s “values” and his job first and foremost involve pursuing a political agenda against gun owners and NRA members.
Bastian then went on to brag during a television appearance on CNBC that his company “gained a lot of fans” for its discriminatory treatment of NRA members and for not “selling out to political interests.”
…
It’s clear from recent customer reviews of Delta that the airline’s time and efforts would be more profitably spent on addressing its own operational issues, rather trying to deflect attention to NRA members.
Boom.
Of course, in all fairness to Delta, it’s entirely possible that it made up any financial shortfall from the now defunct tax breaks from the state of Georgia in new ticket sales. However, I doubt it. Far too many people are either pro-gun or agnostic on the subject of guns for there to have been much made up.
