Ed Bastian: David, if I could jump in here, it’s hard to overstate just how hard it was to bring the full business back up again over the last 2.5 years. And the intensity of that has been phenomenal. And our team’s done a great job, but it’s taken every fiber of our being and hiring and resource we have to try to get ahead of it. We’re there now. Okay. And you see the results in the fourth quarter, they were remarkable. The best fourth quarter operational results I think this company has ever posted. And that is, I think, the big opportunity as we enter the year. I don’t know that we know yet just how much we have available to us as we start to return to a normalized environment and start tweaking those efficiencies.
I think it’s going to be significant. And it’s kind of hard to forecast, because this team has been for the last two plus years in a very different part of the build, but I’m confident we’re going to see some great opportunities. And that’s to Jamie’s earlier question, some of my internal expectations of hoping that we can get through that $7 above EPS number. I’m willing to put that number on paper quite yet, but I think the opportunity is there.
David Vernon: Thanks for that added color. Just to maybe kind of follow-up on that point a little bit, as you think about the optimization efficiency gains that are ahead of you. I appreciate that it’s hard to quantify it all, but can you give us a sense for what the driver of some of these things are kind of big picture wise? Is it about utilization of aircraft? Is it about getting the staffing optimized? Or is it more about just working some of the friction costs in the business out and sort of continuously improving, chasing down a bunch of little dogs and cats across the business? I’m just trying to get a sense for kind of what are we looking at here? Are we looking at a large set of projects or are there one or two things that are going to be super pivotal around the optimization side of this?
Ed Bastian: David, I think it’s all the above. And it’s not just what you mentioned on the cost side, it’s also on the revenue side. Consumer behaviors have changed a lot. And to this point, we’ve been using somewhat older models to predict behavioral patterns. And we now have actually a good baseline over the last year and a half of what – how consumers are purchasing, what they’re purchasing, when they want to travel, which Glen and his team will use to drive better network and revenue outcomes for our business. It’s in the cost line. The fact that we have 10% more employees today than we had at this point, pre-pandemic, essentially driving the same level of operations, tremendous amount of opportunity to get efficient.
But when the operators know what they can count on and they’ve got their arms around the full operation, I think you’re going to see the cash register start to ring with cost and savings efficiency. So I know it’s a bet on the come a little bit, but I’m optimistic we’ll get there. But it’s really hard to quantify at the same time.
David Vernon: Excellent. Thanks a lot for the added color.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Ravi Shanker from Morgan Stanley. Your line is live.
Ravi Shanker: Thanks. Good morning and happy New Year, everyone. I know your commentary on demand sounds pretty good, but can you unpack a little bit more detail on what you’re seeing in the forward booking curve through spring break and maybe even the activity through the Paris Olympics over the summer? What kind of forward indicator do you have that people might be traveling more?
Ed Bastian: Well, I think I mentioned it as a response to one of the other questions, but we have pretty good visibility on the early bookings for the summer Transatlantic season, and we have a higher booked load factor as well as higher yield. So those are the two things you watch for and both are indicating quite positive for the Transatlantic. The U.S. has, of course, a closer in booking curve, but as far as we can see out through a spring break, things look great for the U.S. And as I mentioned earlier, some of the close in beach resorts have a little bit too much industry capacity this year. That’ll probably get rationalized out over time, but still will be very profitable as we move through the peak winter season. And then as Pacific rush, as we continue to lap the buildup of our Pacific as we move through the year, we expect those unit revenues to accelerate demand, particularly strong to the [indiscernible] as well as to Japan in the spring season.
So very exciting. As we look forward, I hope we can outdo our plan.
Ravi Shanker: Got it. And apologies if I missed this earlier, but do you – I mean, some of your peers are having issues with the potential extended grounding of some aircraft for inspections. Do you see any kind of spillover benefit for that in the short-term? And kind of – is any of that in your 1Q guidance?
Ed Bastian: Yes. We’ve seen minimal improvements and what we have seen is mostly in Seattle, where they’ve had to cancel a significant portion of their schedule out of Seattle, but we’ll see how long that stays out. But right now, I wouldn’t say, it’s a significant number in the grander scheme of things. It’s significant for Seattle, but not significant for our whole network.
Ravi Shanker: Understood. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Duane Pfennigwerth from Evercore ISI. Your line is live.
Duane Pfennigwerth: Hey, good morning. Maybe just on the cadence of the non-op savings and the component drivers of that. Is it spread pretty evenly throughout the year or is it more kind of second half weighted?
