Northwest/Delta Airlines Merger

Well, it's official now.

email wrote:

Dear [Clover],

As a valued Northwest Airlines customer and WorldPerks member, I wanted you to be among the first to hear that we have announced a merger with Delta Air Lines. Subject to regulatory review, our two airlines are joining forces to create America's premier global airline which, upon closing of the merger, will be called Delta Air Lines.

It goes on from there, mostly reassuring me that my miles are not worthless and that they're not going out of business, really, honest. Alarm bells are kind of going off for me after all the airline failures last week; this is an enormous merger. Thoughts?

I recently flew NWA, and it left me feeling that I'd never fly with them again. This was over the time when a lot of people fly south for spring break, and so everyone on the plane flying down was in a wonderful mood - except both entire flight crews and every ground staff person I encountered, who all acted like they were itching to get into a fight. (Perhaps they were all worked up about an impending merger?) The difference between the attitudes of the NWA employees and those of the passengers was startling.

I haven't flown Delta in years - too spendy - but I remember liking their customer service. Hopefully they'll pull NWA up a bit?

I usually fly AirTran, but was seduced into flying NWA by a lower ticket price on Expedia this last time. Never again - AirTran employees have virtually always been incredibly pleasant, and the few times we've had issues with a delay or whatever, they've bent over backward to accommodate us however they could. Really nice airline. I hope this merger doesn't hurt them in any way.

But what of all those frequent flier miles I accumulated on Aloha and Frontier Airlines?

I will be flying NWA to Detroit and then to Miami this Friday. If Elysia's theory is right, most likely they are going to tear the passengers apart!

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

I will be flying NWA to Detroit and then to Miami this Friday. If Elysia's theory is right, most likely they are going to tear the passengers apart!

Don't be a stranger and give me a shout out when you are in town!

Actually, I am merely going to stay in Miami overnight. I am taking my family on a cruise, sailing out of port of Miami on 4/19. Because there were no tickets available, the cruise operator is flying us in on 4/18 with a complimentary overnight stay at an airport hotel. To while the time away, I am renting a car and taking my guys to Monkey Jungle zoo (my younger kid hasn't been there) and maybe hanging out for the evening in Miami Beach (never been there yet).

But the temptation to shake hands with the legendary captain of The Pantsless Wonder is TEMPTING!!! Will PM you with my cell phone #.

Since the Delta hub is staying in Atlanta, hopefully Minneapolis will be downgraded to "spoke" status and we'll get better pricing on flights.

I still fail to see how the hub - spoke arrangement is supposed to increase competition. I just end up taking a connecting flight to another hub to fly a different airline, making them more expensive.

This better not mess with my flights over in December.

And I guess that means the big NWA terminal in Detroit is now a Delta spoke.

The management of NWA is a bunch of sh*theels who have made a business practice of taking enormous tax subsidies from the State of Minnesota in exchange for promises of jobs that are never kept, the last of which was to keep its headquarters in Minnesota. They vote large bonus packages for themselves while cutting the real wages of rank-and-file workers by about half (during the NWA bankruptcy, they renegotiated wage packages with the unions to save 1.5 billion, then gave $150 million in bonuses to the top 30 executives). And they raise holy hell whenever a competitor airline tries to get a foothold in Minneapolis, which has resulted in us paying higher than average fares for about 30 years. In a state with more than its share of great corporate citizens, e.g. Target, General Mills, Cargill, Medtronic, 3M, NWA has always been the spoiled baby that did the least and cried the loudest.

I don't know if this will have much, if any, effect on air travel in and out of Minneapolis (a monopoly hub is a valuable asset no matter who owns it). What I do know is that the NWA executives are losing out to Delta executives in the merger, and that makes me happy.

No hubs are being eliminated so Minneapolis will remain a hub. The two airlines have almost completely non-overlapping route structures (there are only 12 flight legs (out of over 1,000) that are served by both carriers.

Hub-and-spoke increases competition over point-to-point by making it possible to operate economically between two cities that could not support a direct flight. Suppose (for example) that you wanted to fly from Podunk to Nowhere. There probably isn't that much traffic between those two town, but there may be a lot of traffic from Podunk to other places and from other places to Nowhere. So, you send all the traffic from Podunk to Big City and fan it out from there to their destinations, and all the traffic from other places comes to Big City and from there gets on the plane to Nowhere. This lets Podunk and Nowhere get more service than they would have if they depended on direct flights. Yes, you have to change planes in Big City, but otherwise you may not be able to get between the two towns at all.

Haakon7 wrote:

And I guess that means the big NWA terminal in Detroit is now a Delta spoke.

I know, and it only took them... twelve years to finish that remodel?

I like NWA for trans-pacific flights. Never flown them domestic.

Every time I see NWA my mind instantly conjures up "straight outta Compton crazy motherfcuker named Ice Cube..."

I fly a lot of Delta for work, mainly between Orange County and Atlanta. They just upgraded the planes on that leg to the ones with DirectTV, which makes for a quick five hour flight. Atlanta's a pretty good airport. It's easy to get around in, but security tends to either be completely empty or jam packed.

Elysia's right that Delta's pretty pricey, especially if you're flying out of their other hub, Cincinnati.

I've come to accept that flying, with the exception of business class and above on Virgin and Singapore, is pretty much like traveling by bus. The airlines don't particularly care about your comfort or your experience since they know that you really don't have any say once they shut those doors. The only reason I fly Delta whenever I can is to maintain my Medallion status so I can board before everyone else (getting that precious overhead bin slot) and because they tend to help frequent fliers when flights get canceled or delayed.

I'm flying out to New York this summer to visit my sister for her 40th birthday. I flew out on Southwest one time and it was horrible. They're much better for short flights out to Vegas or San Fransisco. I'm not sure who I'm flying to New York With, but chances are it's going to be Delta depending on the price.

If you're in SoCal, try JetBlue out of Long Beach. It's a direct flight into Kennedy.

As it is I don't fly so I don't care about that part of the merger, but my livelihood is kind of tied to the Cincinnati airport and the company I work for is contracted through Delta.

Whether it does or doesn't affect us remains to be seen.

Alien13z wrote:

The management of NWA is a bunch of sh*theels who have made a business practice of taking enormous tax subsidies from the State of Minnesota in exchange for promises of jobs that are never kept, the last of which was to keep its headquarters in Minnesota. They vote large bonus packages for themselves while cutting the real wages of rank-and-file workers by about half (during the NWA bankruptcy, they renegotiated wage packages with the unions to save 1.5 billion, then gave $150 million in bonuses to the top 30 executives). And they raise holy hell whenever a competitor airline tries to get a foothold in Minneapolis, which has resulted in us paying higher than average fares for about 30 years. In a state with more than its share of great corporate citizens, e.g. Target, General Mills, Cargill, Medtronic, 3M, NWA has always been the spoiled baby that did the least and cried the loudest.

I don't know if this will have much, if any, effect on air travel in and out of Minneapolis (a monopoly hub is a valuable asset no matter who owns it). What I do know is that the NWA executives are losing out to Delta executives in the merger, and that makes me happy.

wait weren't you in Chicago for a while there Alienz?
And actually part of it is that while Northwest may be "subsidized" realtive to other businesses, its still a pain in the butt to do business here in MN. Even 3M is moving divisons overseas. Personally all the flying I've done has been on Northwest, so maybe my experience is a little different.

My dad is a retired Delta pilot, so I've flown Delta all my life. I'm not big into the stock market, but I do have a fair number of Delta shares. A good portion my dad gave me for my 18th birthday and I continued to buy through the years. I figured if they were lletting me fly for free all this time, the least I could do was buy some stock once a year or so. Not that I would ever sell them, but I'm anxious to see how this affects my worth.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

I am renting a car and taking my guys to Monkey Jungle zoo (my younger kid hasn't been there) and maybe hanging out for the evening in Miami Beach (never been there yet).

Monkey Jungle is the best. I loved that place.

That's a strange necro, and some weird copypasta. Searching the tubes for NWA/Delta are we? Pimping that URL? Can't decide.

I liked flying NWA out of Detroit, but thought it weird that Minneapolis was one of the most expensive destinations ...

If I don't get my scotch refreshed every hour, a flight attendant is getting harshly demeaned, is that negative? I kid, sorta. Always liked Northwest, had great cookies when I was younger, and big seats.

Wait, just saw hold old this thread it, weird.

airemp1996 wrote:

********.com is a website for the Elte flyers and these people are elite in more ways than one.

SPAM!

Quintin_Stone wrote:
airemp1996 wrote:

********.com is a website for the Elte flyers and these people are elite in more ways than one.

SPAM!

You're only saying that because you're not an Elte flyer. Hater!

I think airemp1996 has his finger on the pulse of the NWA/Delta merger, I mean he/she/it is chiming in only a year after the fact.