Well done, Delta Air Lines.

Business Travel News conducted their annual survey among corporate travel managers around the country, in search for the best domestic airline. Not surprisingly, Delta took top honors.

What was surprising, to everyone involved, was how Delta won. In the first time since the survey began (15 years ago), an airline took top honors in all of the ten rating categories - an unprecedented accomplishment for Delta.

People today look at Delta Air Lines as one of the best and largest airlines in the world and that perception is accurate. However, only a few people seem to recall how many doomsayers were predicting the end of Delta just a few short years ago.

As Delta was approaching their bankruptcy filing, they were in desperate (and I do mean desperate) need for cash. The acquisition of their Delta Connection airlines Atlantic Southeast and Comair in 1999 was designed to give the airline a competitive edge in the new millennia, but when the attacks of 9/11 took place it was an entirely new ballgame (this just some six months after the Comair pilots went on an 89 day strike).

In 2004 Comair was again the challenge when the airline ran out of deicing fluid, following a record snow storm, and then had a computer issue with their crew scheduling database, causing as many as 30,000 people to be stranded on Christmas Day.

In 2005 Delta announced they were filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and that’s when the guessing game began among so-called experts. Would Delta survive? Would they be acquired by another airline, causing the name of Delta to disappear forever? Would Delta try to merge with another carrier and, if so, could they survive that as well? On and on went the questions, with precious few answers.

Delta emerged from bankruptcy and later announced a merger with Northwest Airlines. Mergers, as you may recall, are never a certain cure for a struggling airline. The history of aviation is replete with examples of mergers gone bad and today one can look at the United/Continental merger as one gone bad (they still can’t get their technical issues worked out). Now, the Delta/Northwest merger is looked at as the model on how mergers should be handled.

The ten years of Delta history from 1999-2009 was one with a great number of uncertainties. The airline faced challenges of rising fuel prices, increased competition and a weakened worldwide economy, but there was one constant throughout those ten years and indeed until now: The Delta employees.

Through all of the turmoil, the vast majority of Delta employees (nearly all of which had agreed to pay reductions) maintained the highest level of professionalism. To an outsider, one would never know the severity of the challenges facing the airline. The 80,000+ employees at Delta concentrated on trying to exceed customers expectations at every point of contact. It was the front line employees who held it all together through the most trying times in the airline’s 83 year history.

So when I see an award like this given to Delta, it serves as just another reminder of what a great job their employees are doing. It’s well deserved and I hope their dedication to pampering customers spills over onto other airlines (we need it!).