The lights have turned back on at Delta Air Lines and a new station chief at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is rebuilding a local operation depleted by the global pandemic's brutal impact on aviation.
The coronavirus grounded the industry and Delta, the dominant carrier at MSP, lost 500 of its local workers in a rapid downsizing a year ago. Unlike many airlines, Delta managed to avoid large furloughs and firings through a variety of employee incentives.
But locally, said Mary Loeffelholz, Delta's new vice president of MSP airport operations, "We lost a lot of senior people, and this is one of the more senior stations."
MSP is Delta's second-largest hub — the former home of Northwest Airlines, which merged with Delta in 2009 — and has consistently been a top-performer for on-time departures and baggage handling.
After a gradual rise in passenger loads this year, the airline — and, in turn, MSP airport — saw a sharp uptick on May 1 when Delta unblocked its middle seats.
The skies over MSP are buzzing again with arriving and departing passenger jets that are full again, even as the government continues to require mask-wearing at airports and in the air. Delta will operate 338 daily flights at the airport next month, down from the 448 daily flights two years ago, but markedly higher than the 187 daily flights of July 2020.
MSP-based Delta flight attendant Richard Schutz described it as going "from zero to 100 overnight."
Loeffelholz is tasked with building back service, training new leaders and overseeing construction on a large new airport lounge to lift Delta's presence at one of its marquee airports.
For Loeffelholz, it's a homecoming a decade in the making. Her 25-year aviation career started as an environmental engineer at Northwest. The merger pulled her into executive-level positions at Delta's headquarters in Atlanta, where she led international operations, and Los Angeles, where she oversaw the massive LAX terminal renovation over the past three years.
But she never actually left Minnesota. With her husband and kids still living in Edina, Loeffelholz was one of many Northwest veterans who joined Delta but maintained a Twin Cities residence.
Four years ago, she even joined her husband in opening Dampfwerk Distillery in St. Louis Park, making European-style craft spirits inspired by the family's German and American roots.
Loeffelholz took over at MSP last October. "Being in my own bed multiple nights in a row now, just getting reconnected in the community. I love it," she said.
Her primary focus has been on rehiring customer service workers and much of Delta's senior leadership at the airport. Communicating with a team of 1,300 employees and training new hires during the pandemic's peak was difficult, she said.
"When you think about that lost experience, how do you maintain that continuity?" she said. "How do you bring new people and make sure that proud history continues. It's a constant rebuilding, almost rebirth process."
The company held two job fairs in May and made 170 conditional job offers — and is still hiring.
But Loeffelholz's experience with "building big buildings" for Delta is also playing a role. A key part of her job right now, she said, is "staying ahead of the building process."
"Some of its tactical but really, strategically, what are we going to look like a year from now from a facilities standpoint?" she asks herself.
Both of Delta's airport lounges, which it calls Sky Clubs, at MSP are now open without any capacity restrictions. The main club is back to serving buffet-style food, while the smaller one on C concourse is still serving packaged foods.
Last Wednesday, Loeffelholz said got word that revamped plans for a new Sky Club at the end of the G Concourse were approved. Before the pandemic, Delta was planning for a new Sky Club but had to put nonessential capital improvement plans at MSP and its other airports on hold.
Now, Delta's new MSP lounge will be more than 17,000 square feet with a 3,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor sky deck.
"We are really excited. We are designing the ability to open up the walls where you get the outdoor experience brought in as well as the pure outdoor deck," she said.
Delta aims to begin construction on the lounge, which will offer views of planes landing and taking off over the Minnesota River valley, in November. That will be another piece in a broader MSP renovation project that includes much of Concourse G as well as the front entry at Terminal 1.
"Everyone is suffering from materials and supplies shortages, so we are aiming to open in 2023," Loeffelholz said.
