Delta and Northwest to Wed -- Maybe

Proposed merger clears government hurdle

The Federal Aviation Administration has reportedly accepted plans of a merger between Atlanta-based Delta Airlines and Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines into a combined carrier that will retain the Delta name. It is expected to happen, and the European agency that also had to sign off on this has already done so. Then again, as Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over till it's over." Remember that Northwest at one point was going to merge with Houston-based Continental, but that never happened -- although numerous other airline mergers have been consummated since then. In any case, if/when approved, combining daily operations will take 15 to 18 months to combine the carriers daily operations. Share holders are supposed to vote on the merger this Thursday.

The merger may be good for shareholders, it probably won't do a lot for the flying public (because nothing lately has been good for the flying public) and it will be another blow to employees, some of who would surely be terminated. Thomas Kochan, an MIT professor whose who studies the airline industry, said that US airlines eliminated 100,000 jobs between 2001 and 2005 alone, and that airline bankruptcies have also decimated 16 pension plans covering 240,000 employees nationwide. Northwest employees belong to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, while other than pilots, Delta is primarily a non-union carrier. The US Justice Department alone can block mergers on antitrust grounds, but Congress has the powder to protect pension benefits. The current administration and recent Congresses have seemingly been more sympathetic to corporations and their shareholders than to workers, retirees or travelers on common carriers.