MR. BASTIAN: Well, it’s good to be with you, David. Thank you.
MR. IGNATIUS: I want to just note to our viewers, if you’d like to join in the conversation, ask a question that we might use in this interview over the next half hour, please send questions or comments to Washington Post Live by tweeting @PostLive and we’ll take a look.
So, Mr. Bastian, let me start with the overall health of your industry. The airlines over these last two pandemic years recorded just astonishing losses, estimated by McKinsey at over $200 billion. I want to ask you, as you look at the prospect of turning the corner to describe deltas, and what you see as the industry’s strategy for the way back from this terrible downturn.
MR. BASTIAN: Well, you’re right, David. I don’t know if there is an industry that was more disrupted than air travel. There may have been a couple. But when we hit the true bottom of the pandemic, in April, literally two years ago to this week, our revenue base was down to roughly 5 percent of our standard operating levels. And as a result of that, we have taken an enormous amount of steps to get our costs better positioned. We certainly appreciate the support we have received from the administration at the time and the CARE Act funding to keep our employees engaged and ready for the rebound. We focused on wellness and how we’re going to not just protect the health and the well-being of our customers and our passengers, but our business as well, that we’re more resilient as we return.
And what we’ve seen here in the last two months–really,…
