ATLANTA, April 27, 2009 – Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) today dedicated a new 11,000-square-foot employee dining center at its Atlanta headquarters to Delta founder Collett Everman “C.E.” Woolman. The Woolman Café – a $2.5 million investment in Delta employees – offers expanded dining options to more than 4,000 Delta employees working at the company’s headquarters.
With the addition of the Woolman Café, Delta employees now have access to a dozen company dining facilities throughout the United States.
“Delta founder C.E. Woolman was known for saying that if you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers,” Delta CEO Richard Anderson said at the café opening. “There is no more fitting tribute to the legacy of Mr. Woolman than to dedicate a café that will serve the needs of our hard-working Atlanta staff and make Delta an even better place to work.”
In a survey conducted last year, Delta headquarters employees told the company that a full-service cafeteria was their No. 1 choice for improving their work-life balance. In addition to the cafeteria, Delta also has added a full-service medical clinic with an on-call nurse and an on-campus dry cleaning service. The medical clinic complements existing occupational health and wellness centers throughout Delta’s operation.
C.E. Woolman was born in Bloomington, Ind., in 1889 and developed a love for aviation after attending the world’s first aviation meet in Rheims, France in 1909. In the early 1900s, Woolman played a pivotal role in using airplanes in crop dusting to fight the boll weevil across the Mississippi Delta. In 1925, his efforts led him to become general manager of Huff Daland Dusters – the predecessor of Delta Air Lines – when it established headquarters in Monroe, La. In June 1929, Woolman oversaw the launch of Delta’s first passenger flight from Monroe and in 1941 negotiated a long-term lease with the City of Atlanta to move Delta’s headquarters to its current location near Hapeville, Ga. Woolman remained with the company until his death in 1966.
Delta Air Lines is the world’s largest airline. From its hubs in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-JFK, Salt Lake City, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam and Tokyo-Narita, Delta, its Northwest subsidiary and Delta Connection carriers offer service to 368 destinations in 66 countries and serve more than 170 million passengers each year. Delta’s marketing alliances allow customers to earn and redeem either SkyMiles or WorldPerks on more than 16,000 daily flights offered by SkyTeam and other partners. Delta‘s more than 70,000 employees worldwide are reshaping the aviation industry as the only U.S. airline to offer a full global network. Customers can check in for flights, print boarding passes, check bags and flight status at delta.com.
