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Travelers across the US, as well as the rest of the world, had their eyes on the big airline merger news this week: Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines will, as long as they get the legal green light, become one. The plan is to keep the name Delta, and the resulting airline will be the largest airline in the world, counted in terms of the numbers of passengers. The combined routes will take passengers across the US and to Europe, Asia, South America and the Middle East.
The merger announcement wasn’t really a surprise, as rumors of such a deal have been around since January 2008, although at that time it was also proposed that Delta might merge with United Airlines. While the airlines have to wait for an Anti-Trust review before the current merger is approved, most industry experts are expecting it to go ahead. Right now, it’s only the Northwest Airlines pilots who are unhappy about the deal and who are still agitating to change a few things, if not stop it outright – but commentators say that won’t happen.
The staff of the two airlines is being told not to worry about job losses. There are relatively few shared routes on the networks of the two airlines, and besides, there are bigger problems to worry about: the rising cost of fuel, for example, is much more likely to cause problems for the airlines and if job losses occur, it’s probably because of financial problems related to this.
So, what does the Delta and Northwest merger mean for travelers? Right now, not much will change. For a start, nothing can really happen until the legalities are formalized, and that could take a few months. After that, it’s likely that it will take at least a couple of years before the merger is fully implemented and the Northwest brand is completely replaced by Delta.
At the moment, the airlines haven’t indicated making any significant changes to routes, prices or air mile programs, but of course, there’s bound to be some tinkering once the merger is finalized. But it doesn’t sound like there’ll be any major disadvantages to passengers, and the benefits of some financial stability might make Delta a good prospect for a safe booking, in these times where an airline on which you’ve booked a ticket can disappear overnight.
Just the same, Delta and Northwest set up a website to reassure passengers and staff that everything’s under control. If you visit their New Global Airline site, you can click on any US state and discover exactly what benefits they think the merger will have for you. And as for the truth of what effect the merger has – it looks like we’ll have to wait a fair bit longer to find that out.
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April 18th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I would love to believe that nothing will change. I believe it’s simply too early to tell what exactly will happen. I’m a consumer and not an employee. As a consumer I’m worried about my frequent flier miles. Delta said nothing will change, but once the deal closes, there might be a decrease in value of miles. It’s hard to say. Just be careful and don’t be disappointed when things change. There’s more info about the merger on savvywallet.com.