And Awaaay We Go ...

The Delta-Northwest merger announcement is said to be imminent. Here's the Financial Times report.

If Delta and Northwest merge, can United-Continental be far behind?

And after that, whither American Airlines? [Which, come to think of it, is a question hundreds of thousands of air travelers had reason to ask last week after American abruptly canceled over 3,500 flights.]

Anyway, on the likely Delta-Northwest deal, from the Wall Street Journal online:

"Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines have spent the last week readying their long-delayed merger announcement, with the aim of unveiling it as early as Tuesday, said people familiar with the matter.

They could go ahead without the support of Delta's 6,000 pilots. Delta and its pilots remained in talks over the weekend on a new post-merger contract that would cover that group only, leaving negotiations with Northwest's 5,000 pilots for a later day, these people said. ..."

And here's the story from the Journal-Constitution in Atlanta, where Delta -- which would be the controlling and namesake airline after a merger -- is based. [And by the way, I do wish the media would cut out all this "courtship/marriage" metaphorical crap. These are two big rapacious corporations, not Frankie and Sue from the neighborhood.]

Anyway, it's going to be quite a summer for air travelers, especially if we end up with 11,000 or so pilots PO'd to various degrees.

###