Delta started sharing profits with its 100,000 employees two decades ago. CEO Ed Bastian says shareholders love it

For Delta employees, Valentine’s Day lately has come with a little something extra: a bigger paycheck, thanks to Delta’s now robust profit-sharing program.

The payout is sizeable: this year, Delta dispersed over $1 billion to its roughly 100,000 employees. For Delta CEO Ed Bastian, keeping employees happy is just a key to the airline’s success. 

Delta first began its profit-sharing incentive in 2007, which, Bastian notes, “at the time, people didn’t think too much about it because it wasn’t paying anything,” as the company was “far from” profitable. But that quickly changed when the CEO turned the airline from bankruptcy to the $43.6 billion company it is today, and the most profitable U.S. airline. 

“They’ll get a 15% effective return on profits for as long as we’re around,” Bastian told Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell during the Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast of the program. “This is not like a short-term thing, because they created the 15% investment return. I thought [it] was a pretty good idea to get people excited.”

Profit sharing distributes a slice of company earnings directly to workers as a cash bonus. At Delta, the formula is simple: 10% of the first $2.5 billion in adjusted profits, and 20% of everything above that. The 15% number Bastian...