GM’s Cruise hires former Delta COO Gil West

Cruise, the majority-owned autonomous vehicle subsidiary of General Motors, has hired former Delta Air Lines chief operating officer Gil West as its chief operating officer, the company said on Friday.

West retired in late September after 12 years with the Atlanta-based airline. He was responsible for Delta’s global operations, including 366 airports in 66 countries, 1,300 aircraft, 200 million customers per year, and managed a budget of $ 16 billion. He started shortly before Delta’s merger with Northwest in 2008 and was appointed Delta’s COO in 2014.

“Gil’s track record of delivering an incredible customer experience, exceptional operating performance, and flawless security – all at scale is a perfect fit for Cruise as we embark on the journey to market our autonomous driving technology, ”said Dan Ammann, CEO of Cruise, in a statement. .

West is the second Delta executive to join the automaker’s operations in recent months. GM poached Delta CFO Paul Jacobson as new CFO in October. Jacobson replaced Dhivya Suryadevara, who unexpectedly left GM for digital payments company Stripe, effective December 1.

Self-driving cars are taking a lot longer to bring to market than most even thought a few years ago. Despite significant hype on Wall Street and at companies, including Cruise, promising driverless car fleets now or around, Alphabet’s Waymo remains the only company to operate autonomous vehicles for public use, in Arizona.

Cruise had planned to launch a fleet of robot taxis in San Francisco in 2019, but those plans have been delayed indefinitely for further testing.

“Cruise is leading the way in changing lives and ending the transportation status quo,” West said in a statement. “There won’t be a bigger change in the transportation industry in my life than the shift to autonomous driving … I’ve trained my entire career for an opportunity like this.”